What I Know

Tom Rush has been touring steadily for decades since his last studio album, bringing that voice and those songs to devoted audiences across the country. There have been a few live albums as welcome reminders of Tom's relaxed, expressive baritone, skilled guitar-playing, droll humor and infallible taste in writing and choosing material (after all, he was virtually the first to record songs by then-unknowns Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne and James Taylor). Now there's a new Tom Rush studio CD, What I Know, his first since 1974, a musical quilt of original and carefully selected compositions that fully deserve "the Rush treatment."

Tom's voice and phrasing are what make every song he sings his own. He writes or selects songs shorn of elaborate metaphors, choosing graceful, evocative, straightforward emotional settings. Then his warm baritone, tanned by experience, humor and melancholy, shines right through the lyrics, illuminating them from within.

Produced in Nashville by longtime Cambridge friend and musician Jim Rooney and his subtle crew of country-folk musicians, What I Know contains five Rush originals, his arrangement of the traditional "Casey Jones" (with guest vocalist Nanci Griffith) and nine renditions of mostly unfamiliar songs that become instant friends. Tom's compositions range from toe-tappers ("Hot Tonight," with guest Bonnie Bramlett on harmony vocals, "Silly Little Diddle," "One Good Man" and the exuberant title song) to the wearily peaceful "River Song" (with Robin Batteau on violin). There are gorgeously regret-filled songs by Steven Bruton ("Too Many Memories," with Emmylou Harris on harmony, A.J. Swearingen's "You're Not Here with Me," Jamaican singer Mishka's "Lonely"), the wonderfully tender "What an Old Lover Knows," by Melanie Dyer and Kim Beard Day, and a velvety song of seduction - "Fall into the Night" - by Eliza Gilkyson. "East of Eden," co-written by Jack ("Peaceful Easy Feeling") Tempchin doubles as a frustrated love song and a commentary on US immigration policies. The best-known song covered is a reflective take on Mentor Williams' "Drift Away," a hit for Dobie Gray, Rod Stewart and uncountable others, performed here minus the "horn section, backup singers, smoke machines and pole dancers" Tom has heard in previous arrangements.

Tom Rush - the man with the golden ear, the comforting voice, the supple guitar and the craftsman's pen - has given us a gift worth waiting for.