Otis Rush: I Can't Quit You Baby: The Cobra Sides [BLUES JOINT]

Why you'll love it

Eighteen tracks on one LP gather the records that made Otis Rush's name. "I Can't Quit You Baby" was his first recording and Cobra's first single, and it reached No. 6 on the Billboard R&B chart.

This edition

• 18-track compilation
• Stereo

About the album

Otis Rush played a left-handed guitar strung upside down, low E at the bottom, and that unusual grip helped give his playing its stinging, bending cry. Willie Dixon heard it, signed him to the new Cobra label in Chicago and produced the sessions that defined the West Side sound. In a 1957 Cash Box poll, R&B disc jockeys voted him Most Promising Up and Coming Male Vocalist.

"I Can't Quit You Baby" is a slow, aching blues with Rush moving from a natural voice to falsetto, shouts and growls. "Double Trouble" smoulders, "All Your Love (I Miss Loving)" switches gears mid-song, and "My Love Will Never Die" won a Cash Box Award of the Week. Ike Turner or Jody Williams add guitar on some tracks, and "Checking on My Baby" and "Jump Sister Bessie" keep things lively. Led Zeppelin later adapted his 1966 update of "I Can't Quit You Baby" for their debut album.

Eric Clapton and Peter Green both learned plenty from these records, and Rush joined the Blues Hall of Fame in 1984. The title is also a fair description of what happens after the first listen.

Also at Kops: more Otis Rush on vinyl · browse Blues

Tracklist

Listen

On Blues Joint (cat# 8030).