Tom Rushen Blues

Subject: Tom Rushen Blues
From: pearn
Date: 08 Dec 03 - 06:53 AM

Anyone has any knowledge about the story behind Tom Rushen Blues? Seems like Charlie Patton must have had a specific event in mind when he wrote it.

Subject: RE: Tom Rushen Blues
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 10 Dec 03 - 01:28 AM

The lyrics to TOM RUSHEN BLUES are in the thread called ADD Lyrics: Charley Patton Songs (the second song in the first message).

Subject: RE: Tom Rushen Blues
From: pearn
Date: 10 Dec 03 - 03:29 AM

Thanks, Jim. However, I already had the lyrics and was curious about the story behind. The same with most of the other prewar blues stuff. Lyrics are wonderful and interesting and tell stories taken out of the lives of these people, but often the true story behind the songs seems to be lost. Still, some people may have knowledge about it, and this forum might be a good place to gain and spread this knowledge.

Subject: RE: Tom Rushen Blues
From: Brian Hoskin
Date: 10 Dec 03 - 05:38 AM

There is some information on this in Stephen Calt and Gayle Dean Wardlow's book King of the Delta Blues (1988 Rock Chapel Press):

"An apparent arrest for drunkeness led him to concoct a sedate blues that smacks of an attempt to curry favor with the recently-installed high sheriff of Merigold, O.T. Rushing, who had assumed office in 1928 and would hold that position for the next four years:


Laid down last night, hopin' I would have my peace
But when I woke up, Tom Rushin' was shakin' me

Patton's Merigold crony Willie (Have Mercy) Young recalled Rushing as a "right young law" who "wasn't about twenty five years old" when Patton recorded the song (miscontrued by Paramount as Tom Rushen) in 1929. Like his brother, who worked as the book-keeper of Dockery's plantation, he was renowned for his athletic prowess, which he turned to good account on his job. "He was a law who wouldn't shoot you for nothin'," Young said appreciatively, "I don't care what you done: if you outrun him, he let you go." As a new arrival in Merigold, Young tried to pit his legs against thjose of the towering Rushing (whom he took to be seven feet tall) after breaking a bowl upon a girlfriend's head during a house "frolic" fracas: "He caught me: 'Fella, don't you know your legs aren't fast?' I said 'I just didn't know the town! But if I hadda knew the town you never woulda got me.' I had three blocks on him . . . I said: 'What's the fine?' He said 'Five dollars, and go about your business.'" Patton's song likewise pointed up the futility of flight from the fleet Rushing:

When you get in trouble, it's no use go screamin' and cryin'
Tom Rushin' will take you, back to the prisonhouse flyin'

Instead of elaborating on his own confinement, Patton devoted three couplets to the doings of Rushing's deputy, a man named Days, who had arrested one of his friends for bootlegging and apparently aspired to become sheriff:

It was late one night, Halloway was gone to bed
Mr. Day brought whiskey taken from under Halloway's head

I got up this mornin', Tom Day was standin' around
If he lose his office here he's runnin' from town to town.

Of Days, Young said: "Mister Day was all right, but he wasn't like Tom Rushin'. Mister Rushin' was my man."

Subject: RE: Tom Rushen Blues
From: Brian Hoskin
Date: 10 Dec 03 - 05:42 AM

Sorry, messed up there with the italics! Obviously I didn't put in the correct HTML command after 'Tom Rushen'.

Subject: RE: Tom Rushen Blues
From: GUEST,Peter Arnesen
Date: 11 Dec 03 - 03:18 AM

Thanks a lot Brian. This was exactly what I needed. I'll try go get the book you referred to.

Subject: RE: Tom Rushen Blues
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Dec 03 - 04:14 AM

Jim Dixon - are you the Bottleneck Blues Player from "Up North" UK ?

Subject: RE: Tom Rushen Blues
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 11 Dec 03 - 08:29 PM

No, I live in Minnesota, USA, and I'm not a musician, at least, not enough of one to get paid for it. Interesting to know there's another one who is, though.