Can't Rush Greatness

Jennifer Rush is the sixth studio album by American singer Jennifer Rush. Released in Europe in 1992, the album proved less of a hit than her previous work and peaked in Germany at #35 (her most successful market)…

Throughout their career, Rush have always been a band that you could count on to push the boundaries of what rock was capable of, and their discography contains a laundry list of ambitious albums that helped to bring prog to a wider audience…

Otis Rush is a stunning vocalist, innovative guitarist and songwriter who has hugely influenced blues and rock artists, including Johnny Winter, Stevie Ray Vaughan (whose band, Double Trouble, was named after Rush's song of the same name), Jeff Beck, and Carlos Santana. Rush was inspired to become a bluesman after he moved to Chicago in the late forties and saw Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf perform. Along with Buddy Guy and Magic Slim, Rush developed a playing style that would become known as the "West Side sound," an emotionally intense combination of guitar licks and expressive vocals, with an urban sound that signified a departure from classic Mississippi Delta blues.

Rush is a Canadian rock band composed of Geddy Lee (bass, lead vocals, keyboards), Alex Lifeson (guitars, backing vocals) and Neil Peart (drums, percussion, lyrics). Forming in 1968, the band went through several configurations until arriving at its current line-up when Peart replaced original drummer John Rutsey in July 1974, two weeks before the group's first United States tour…

Taking listeners on a journey through Rush's seminal, prog-heavy early period, Sector 1 is the first in a series of three box sets released by the band in 2011. Collecting the band's first five albums, Rush, Fly by Night, Caress of Steel, 2112, and the live album All the World’s a Stage, the set shows Rush finding their feet artistically as they grow from a Led Zeppelin-inspired blues-rock band on their debut to the wildly ambitious band that released 2112, an album with a 20-minute title track…

Otis Rush and Buddy Guy were hot young Chicago guitar slingers in the 1950s, when legends like Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf ruled the Second City. Rush was renowned for his nasty, over-amplified guitar sound, and songs like "All Your Love" and "Double Trouble" were seminal touchstones for such `60s British guitarists as Eric Clapton and Peter Green. Rush has lately been known more for live shows than records, and 1994's Ain't Enough Comin' In succeeded because it was programmed like a great concert set, with fat guitar solos that suggested Albert King in a sweat, and songs that drew from both the blues and soul songbooks. Rush sounds great singing Sam Cooke's good-news gospel ("Somebody Have Mercy" and "Ain't That Good News") and pays his propers to Ray Charles on "A Fool for You." Exciting takes on epic tunes associated with B.B. King ("It's My Own Fault") and Albert King ("As the Years Go Passing By") also leave no doubt that Rush hasn't forgotten how to burn down the house.

Here we go again! Rush are perhaps the only band that can get away with issuing a studio album and following it up with a live record of the tour for that same album, as is the case here. Is there any band on a major label out there that has as many live records as Rush does? People buy 'em. Lots of people. The reason is that yes, Rush fans are fanatics, and who wouldn't want that in a fan base? The other reason is that they issue new studio recordings so infrequently that fans are grateful to have live offerings documenting a particular tour. Another mystery is how, after 33 years, a band with this kind of longevity manages to stay focused and restless, changing gears and musical approaches to its core sound…