All Your Love (I Miss Loving) (feat. Eric Clapton)
Every Day I Have The Blues (feat. Luther Allison & Eric Clapton)
Southpaw guitarist Otis Rush made his debut in 1956 with a cover of Willie Dixon?s "I Can?t Quit You Baby", charting his first Top Ten R&B hit. Over the course of his 50-year career, Rush has established himself as one... more » of the premiere bluesmen on the Chicago circuit. Often credited with being one of the architects of the West side guitar style, Rush?s esteemed status as a prime Chicago innovator is eternally assured by his trademark sound. Blues fans have said that his combination of ringing, vibrato-enhanced guitar work with an intense vocal delivery is powerful enough to force the hair on the backs of their necks upwards in silent salute. Otis Rush Live At Montreux 1986 features the Chicago blues legend at his spine-tingling best. For his first appearance at the Montreux Festival, Rush is joined on stage by fellow blues stars Eric Clapton and Luther Allison for a truly special show. The CD features nearly an hour-and-a-half of performances of Rush classics, including "All Your Love (I Miss Loving)", "Double Trouble" and many more.« less
Southpaw guitarist Otis Rush made his debut in 1956 with a cover of Willie Dixon?s "I Can?t Quit You Baby", charting his first Top Ten R&B hit. Over the course of his 50-year career, Rush has established himself as one of the premiere bluesmen on the Chicago circuit. Often credited with being one of the architects of the West side guitar style, Rush?s esteemed status as a prime Chicago innovator is eternally assured by his trademark sound. Blues fans have said that his combination of ringing, vibrato-enhanced guitar work with an intense vocal delivery is powerful enough to force the hair on the backs of their necks upwards in silent salute. Otis Rush Live At Montreux 1986 features the Chicago blues legend at his spine-tingling best. For his first appearance at the Montreux Festival, Rush is joined on stage by fellow blues stars Eric Clapton and Luther Allison for a truly special show. The CD features nearly an hour-and-a-half of performances of Rush classics, including "All Your Love (I Miss Loving)", "Double Trouble" and many more.
CD Reviews
Great live performance!
M. Bernocchi | Old Windsor, Berkshire United Kingdom | 04/23/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This is really, as someone has already pointed out, a great live recording. Surely one of the best live electric blues album that I own. Recorded at the Montreux Blues and Jazz festival in 1986 this CD is packed wall to wall with extraordinary feeling and great playing from all the musicians present on the stage. It appears immediately evident from the first note of the first track that Otis Rush was in a great form that night, and his singing and guitar playing is simply superb through out the entire concert. If you add to the mix an inspired Eric Clapton (that when plays the blues is second to none) sharing the centre of the stage on 4 songs and "dulcis in fundo" even the great Luther Allison for the closing act, you may start to have an idea of the final result. As a plus, and not a minor one, the quality of the sound is excellent and all the instruments sound clear. Very difficult not to mention the killer version of the classic "Crosscut saw" and an even more intense "All your love (I miss loving)" with Otis and Eric jamming together. In conclusion a five stars plus record that I suggest you should add to your collection if you are a blues fan and you like your blues very much guitar driven."
Would be better if...
Somebody | KCMO | 05/12/2006
(3 out of 5 stars)
"I bought this CD only after a reviewer reported below that "the sound is excellent." The sound is not excellent. It reminds me of Albert King's 1967 Fillmore West recordings. The sound is very bright. Fred Barnes's cat quick bass licks lack any low end. This CD sounds best played in my car where the recording's high frquency bias isn't as noticable.
That being said, it is a satisfying performance. Especially with Eric Clapton featured on three of the nine tracks and Clapton and Luther Allison on a fourth."
As brilliant as Rush and Clapton are, it's Allison in the en
o dubhthaigh | north rustico, pei, canada | 05/24/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"that takes this record to places it never would have reached otherwise. Otis Rush is a major force compositionally and stylistically in contemporary electric blues, and he has the voice of genuine authority when he sings. What you get on the first five cuts are a sampling of just how strong those talents are. When Clapton comes on to join him, Rush pulls out of Clapton some of the very best work Eric has committed to recording ever. For my ears, it would be until THE CONCERT FOR GEORGE and the Robert Johnson discs that Clapton would be this incendiary again. And that's odd about Clapton: on his own, he is not his best advocate. Put him in a context like this, where he is working within the blues, and he is a very different beast altogether. Clapton tears up his counterattacks to Rush and they clearly are intensely focused on wringing everything out of each song.
That alone would be enough for any record to aspire to, but wait. Luther Allison arrives for the closer, at first without a guitar, and whips not just the audience, but Rush and Clapton into a frenzy. Strapping on his Strat, Allison takes this recording to heights clearly unaniticipated by everyone else in the room. It is a performance for the ages. But Luther was always like that. For my money, there was and remains no finer or more exciting guitarist in any discipline of music. So, as stunning as the first 8 tracks are, number 9 blows them all away.
And the best part is, the DVD is even better!"
Otis Rush - Live at Montreux 1986, my review from Barcelona
Jose Maria Domenech Fedi | 06/24/2007
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Otis Rush is one of the best Bluesman of all times. He is a great singer, guitarist and composer, on the same level as the late Magic Sam and the current leaders of the Chicago Blues, Buddy Guy and the really magic Magic Slim, all of them creators of the sound known as West Side. I find this live record a jewel with only one defect, which is its sound. The bass guitar practically is nonexistent, particularly in some themes as for example the one that opens the LP, "Tops", or the one that closes the record, the brilliant Memphis Slim's "Every day I have the Blues". Nonetheless it is an extraordinary record, one of the best live records I have heard. Otis' way of playing and singing is absolutely superb and all the musicians do a great job, with powerful contributions by an inspired Eric Clapton, aka Slow Hand, in four themes, in the last of which coinciding with another top figure as Luther Allison, a great admirer of Otis Rush. The record contains several extraordinary original themes as well as versions. I want to highlight the intensity of the version of the classic Albert King's "Croscut Saw", and one of his great compositions, "All your love (I miss loving)". I'm also partial to "Double trouble", a great Blues with that Otis' feeling, and the blues which closes the record, Memphis Slim's "Every day I have the Blues", with Clapton, Allison and Rush showing their mastery, even though towards the end of the theme the sound loses some clarity. Highly recommended for all the blues and guitar lovers. I give it 5 stars in spite of this somewhat flawed sound and long live to Otis Rush.
Track Listings (12) - Disc #1