Biography

radio promo contact: Kevin Johnson
promo@delmark.com

Click Here for more Delmark Releases!


1 Cut You A Loose (Mel London/Ricky Allen) 3:40
2 You're Breaking My Heart (Jules Bihari/BB King) 8:01
3 Midnight Special (Jimmy Smith) 4:52
4 Society Woman 6:32 (Otis Rush)
5 Mean Old World (Al Frazier/T-Bone Walker) 6:26
6 All Your Love (Otis Rush/Willie Dixon) 6:32
7 Cold Day In Hell (Otis Rush) 6:19
8 Part Time Love (Clay Hammond) 6:06
9 You're Breaking My Heart (Alternate Take) (BB KING) 6:52
10 Motoring Along (Jimmy McGriff) 3:08

Recorded April 29 & May 29, 1975

Otis Rush: vocals, guitar
Mighty Joe Young: guitar (1, 3-6, 9, 10)
Big Moose Walker: piano, organ
Abb Locke: tenor sax
Chuck Smith: baritone sax
James Green: bass (1. 3-6. 9, 10)
Jesse Green: drums
Bob Levis: guitar (2, 7, 8)
Bob Stroger: bass (2, 7, 8)

Guts. That’s what this record is all about: Otis Rush’s days in hell, and the tentative joys of returning above ground. Everything about Otis Rush says guts: his squeezing, piercing guitar, his raw-boned, blood-tinged vocals, his lyrics, full of a profound sense of the trips men and women lay on each other – and most of all, his courage to open up from the inside and let all this out in his music.

Otis Rush's gut music has drawn tribute from many and various artists. People like Duane Allman, Johnny Winter, Little Milton, Mike Bloomfield, & Elvin Bishop have acknowledged his influence, in interviews or by recording his songs. But it's not only his songs they have admired, it's the spirit of the performances, the WAY he plays and sings them.

COLD DAY IN HELL is Otis Rush's first full album in quite some time. His Atlantic Cotillion LP is now a collector's item, and his work with Jimmy Dawkins on Jimmy's ALL FOR BUSINESS (Delmark 634) album offered a tantalizing hint of things to come. COLD DAY IN HELL probably also represents the first time Otis has been able to go into the studio and really play exactly as the spirit moved him, using his own material in his own way. And that didn't require any guts on Delmark's part - it was the easiest thing in the world.

- producer Steve Tomashefsky from liners, 1975