Crush on Tom Rush
It was our first time at The Harvester Performance Center in Rocky Mount, and we went for good reason, to see the iconic singer songwriter whose 1970 album that bore his name played regularly on my turntable throughout the ‘70s: Tom Rush.
While settling into our seats, we ran into friends from Floyd who also wore out Tom’s early albums. One of them, my friend Jonathan Rogers, went to Harvard University at the same time Tom did. Jonathan and I had fun reminiscing about going to the old Boston Tea Party, where we heard some of the best bands of our generation before they were even famous, Led Zepplin, Neil Young and Crazy Horse and so many more.
Tom Rush paved the way for the singer/songwriter genre and helped launch the careers of people like Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Jackson Browne by singing their songs before they were known. He told stories of his days of playing around in cafés in Cambridge. “Any old misplaced New Englanders out there?” he asked. Of course, I let out a whoop.
Hearing him perform The Urge for Going, one of the earliest that Joni Mitchell wrote, choked me and my friend Ellen up.
When I met Tom in the lobby during intermission, he remembered the South Shore Music Circus, where I first heard him in concert around 1976. He talked about how the merry-go-round outdoor stage made him feel like he was going to fall of it. I secretly admired his shoes.
I thought of my sister Sherry the whole time because we loved Tom Rush together, and it was she who sat next to me at the Music Circus in Cohasset, Massachusetts so many years ago. I hadn’t known it at the time, but I had just contracted Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (which had no name then) and was just figuring out that something was really wrong. Sadly, what I remember most about the concert in Cohasset was how tired I felt, and because it took so much energy to lift my arms to clap in between songs, I left them mostly in my lap, even though I loved the songs.
I still love them.
Here’s Tom talking about how his song No Regrets took on a life of it’s own, was widely covered and helped put his kids through college. You can hear me and Jonathan laughing louder than anyone else.
He introduced a few new songs. Before playing “My Baby Loves Me,” he told us how the muse had woke him too early, and he didn’t want to get up. “If you don’t take it, I’ll give it to Arlo,” the muse said, and so he got up and wrote a new song.
Matt Nakoa accompanied Tom on piano. A fabulous musician in his own right, Nakoa took the stage on two occasions to play some of his own songs, on piano and guitar. The one above is called You are My Moonshine, introduced by Nakoa as a drinking song, a love song and a children’s song (new take on You are My Sunshine).
At the end of the show when Tom was in the lobby again, I joked with him and half-hugged him while thanking him for playing the requests I made during the intermission (like the one above). I told him I wouldn’t have been able to even talk to him back in 1976 because I was so young and star struck (aka crush). Joe snapped the picture of Jonathan and me with Tom (below), one to go down in history.
As we were leaving Joe told me that he had just purchased a ticket for us to see Jesse Collin Young (of the Youngbloods), another one of my mainstay favorites back in the day, who I also saw perform in the late ‘70s. “It’s like meeting up with old boyfriends!” I told him.
We all left singing the Youngbloods Let’s Get Together …Come on People now… Smile on your brother… Everybody get together… Try to love one another right now … and feeling the full circle of life.
March 19th, 2017 9:28 am
OMG! Love this entry! Love that you got a picture with him! Wish I was there!
PS OUR first time seeing Tom Rush was actually at Harvard Stadium – he was back up for someone else. xo
March 19th, 2017 9:41 am
I don’t remember that at all. I only remember seeing him at the South Shore Music Circus. You were with me for some of those classic Tea Party shows and shows at the Boston Symphony Hall! Jessie Colin Young is next in June!
March 19th, 2017 10:10 am
I first discovered Tom Rush on late night radio, thanks to a late night WBZ DJ named Dick Summer, who played all the ‘alternative rock” that they couldnt play otherwise, since most popular music at that time had to be danceable, and 3 minutes long.
He played Cat Stevens, he played Tom Rush ( the Circle Game, which as he said, is “way too long but by the end of it you’ll never notice), he played Jim Croce, Joni Mitchell, on and on…I too wore out that very Tom Rush album, and now have it on CD.
March 19th, 2017 1:00 pm
When I was in high school in Pawtucket, RI, and later in college at Brown in Providence in the mid to late 60’s, I used to go up to Cambridge, MA, frequently to go to the Club 47 to see all the greats of the folk scene then, Dylan, Byez, etc., but my favorite was always Tom Rush. How young we all were. I can remember clearly Tom doing his thing with Fritz Richmond backing up on the washtub bass. I based a lot of my guitar style on Tom’s back in that old wonderful day. Lucky you to get to see him in person one more time.
March 19th, 2017 1:24 pm
I loved WBCN, Judy. Back then it was like hip underground. I remember hearing Leonard Cohen sing Suzanne and it changed my life.
I missed that whole Cambridge scene, Bill, but did have the Boston Tea Party and free concerts on the Boston Commons, where we saw Rod Stewart and the Faces and more.
March 19th, 2017 5:36 pm
what a fun post! so glad you had such a great adventure. if your younger self had known you’d eventually be having a conversation and close physical contact along with a little photo session, she probably would not have believed it! 🙂
March 19th, 2017 6:39 pm
you are one lucky lady, CR.
March 19th, 2017 8:45 pm
You met Tom Rush. Wow! And you heard Tom Rush live. Wow!
Floyd, that’s where its at. I know it wasn’t in Floyd specifically, but holy cow. Chris Rea might have to change the title to one of his songs.
March 19th, 2017 11:45 pm
The venue was only about an hour away. I’m not familiar with Chris Rea. What would he change the title of his song to?
March 20th, 2017 12:26 am
This explains it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMk208Op1Jc&ytbChannel=bluewyvern51 I think.
March 20th, 2017 1:09 am
Colleen, like you, I had a lot of Tom’s songs on my turntable back in the 60s. He had an incredible arrangement of Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Love” that was mesmerizing and I still have that recording in my iPhone music collection to this day. I photographed him in the Village back in the 90s and he did not disappoint. Thanks for the report.
March 20th, 2017 4:46 am
Sounds like an awesome time! Lucky you. Yep I used to hang around Cambridge a lot in the 70’s. Thanks for the clips! Love his stuff, plus the ones others made hits. I’m a song writer from way back myself. Don’t play out any more these days. Remember those days tho.
March 26th, 2017 12:07 pm
Just reading comments………Leonard Cohen’s Suzanne was somewhat a changer for myself in grade 9 (not number one as could not ever prioritize influences), though I never heard him perform at that age like yourself. I guess am internally thankful for transistor radios and batteries. With regards to Cohen, later on, much later, it was ‘Sisters of Mercy’.
But it was a quot of his, that still resonates for me, and not many others, “My province is small and I try to explore it very, very thoroughly”.
What was with Boston, back then. My ‘bestie’ grew up there, still lives there down the shore. And she is the most ‘take a giant leap out of your mind’ kinda being/spirit I’ve run across.
March 26th, 2017 12:54 pm
I heard Cohen say in an interview once how he doesn’t think his poetry is as elegant as that of other poets but that he has: “done the best that I can with it and I’ve worked as diligently as I can.” I have always related to that plugging away and working with what and who you are. Boston, the south shore for me too, was a great place to grow up in those times.
March 26th, 2017 10:48 pm
Kate & Anna McGarrigle comes to mind as well.
Working with an whom you be; I agree. Staying within your shadow, more often then not, as far one needs to go.
Not as elegant, but it had the nose of the grape from which the vines it came. You read it, you bought it; as is where is.
March 19th, 2021 1:10 am
I can see why you liked his shoes!!