Though their music often shines a light on the struggles of life, bluesmen are not particularly known for their social activism. Sure, there are specific songs about the injustices of racism and poverty, but the days when the Newport Folk Festival of ’60s brought together the likes of Mississippi John Hurt, Reverend Gary Davis, Bob Dylan et al., and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, protesting everything from Jim Crow to the Vietnam War, seem like a distant memory. The artists at this year’s Richmond Folk Festival in Richmond, Virginia, for example, while admirably diverse, were all about having an anodyne, nonconfrontational good time, with nary an echo of Woody Guthrie’s or Pete Seeger’s rebellious spirits, even as Proud Boys plague our streets.
But in Memphis, the tradition of blending folk, blues, and activism lives on in the annual Acoustic Sunday Live concerts produced by Bruce and Barbara Newman, and this year’s iteration will be no different. True to form, it will feature a wide swath of artists from the folk and blues communities, all to benefit Protect Our Aquifer, a local grassroots organization devoted to reminding the powers that be — loudly — that our source of clean drinking water is not up for sale or exploitation. Lending their voices to the cause this year will be award winning blues singer Shemekia Copeland, celebrated singer/songwriter James McMurtry, folk-Americana duo Alice Howe & Freebo, and Memphis’ own Eric Lewis and Jimmy Davis. But the most politically-engaged music of the night may well come from that venerable high priest of the blues, Bobby Rush, who will appear in tandem with Kenny Wayne Shepherd.
Rush, speaking from his home in Jackson, Mississippi, wants folks to know that he is one bluesman with a mind for justice and for the environment. While he has plenty of good-time music under his belt, and will no doubt offer some up at this coming Sunday’s concert, he’s about more than that.
His adopted hometown of Jackson, of course, has had its share of clean water woes, with the Associated Press reporting last year that “tens of thousands of people [were left] without safe drinking water for weeks in 2021 and 2022.” And those problems have lingered on through today. As Rush puts it, “We’re still in a crisis, but we’ve got a new man now.”
That would be newly elected mayor John Horhn, who Mississippi Today calls “a seasoned moderate who promises to restore basic services, tackle blight and bring back economic development.” Rush sees signs of hope in Horhn’s election. “He’s my personal friend, and I’m involved with him highly on a town hall meeting [where] I’m one of the speakers, talking about the water situation. It ain’t good, but it’s better than it was. Hopefully, in the next six months it’ll be completed and up running with 100 percent clear water and good water.”
Rush’s proclivity to face political issues head-on is also apparent in his collaboration with Shepherd, with whom he recorded the album Young Fashioned Ways, released this April. (It recently earned the pair a Grammy nomination in the Best Traditional Blues Album category.) Some have considered their partnership politically fraught due to Shepherd’s “cancellation” in 2021, with the Blues Foundation rescinding its nomination of the singer/guitarist for Best Blues/Rock Artist that year due to “representations of the Confederate flag on Shepherd’s ‘General Lee’ car, guitars, and elsewhere,” as the foundation noted in a press release at the time, adding that they had “also asked Ken Shepherd, father of Kenny Wayne Shepherd, to step down as a member of its Board of Directors” over the matter.
Shepherd, for his part, apologized and noted that the car in question, a replica of the one used in The Dukes of Hazzard, had been in storage for years, with the offending flag painted over. He added at the time that he’s always opposed racism. And his current collaboration with Rush would seem to bear that out.
“One of the reasons I wanted to do this with Kenny Wayne Shepherd was because I wanted to make a statement to the world,” says Rush, “that we as a people can get along together and do things together — whether you’re Black or white or brown or whatever. We’re both from Louisiana, a white guy and a Black guy, and the music ain’t got no color. I’m making a statement without making a statement. You follow me?”
When reporters asked him about Shepherd at the time of the controversy, Rush says, he simply replied, “I know the man, and the man I know ain’t the man that you’re speaking of.” Noting that he’s known Shepherd since the guitarist was in his late teens, Rush adds that he has “a great knowledge of the blues. Now you might say, ‘Well, damn, he plays good to be a white guy. Let me tell you something: He plays good to be a person, to be a God-child, because he understands some things about the blues.”
That understanding is so deep that they’re both looking at keeping the partnership going. “I’m letting a little rabbit out of the hat,” Rush says. “Now, I haven’t told this to anyone, but we are talking now about doing another album.”
That would make sense: With Rush singing and blowing harp over Shepherd’s gritty guitar grooves, Young Fashioned Ways reveals an undeniable chemistry between them. And it confronts the travails of history and race head-on at points, as with Rush’s song “40 Acres (How Long?),” which deals with the U.S. government’s promised allotment to freed slaves that somehow never materialized. “I’m talkin’ ’bout my 40 acres and my mule,” Rush sings. “Granddaddy died waiting/Grandmama died waiting too/Martin Luther King, he died waiting/Tell me, what about, what about me and you?” Given Acoustic Sunday Live’s tradition of troubadours who hold a mirror up to our society, Rush and Shepherd couldn’t be more appropriate as guests on its stage.
Acoustic Sunday Live takes place at 7 p.m. on Sunday, December 7th, at First Congregational Church, 1000 Cooper Street. For tickets and details, visit acousticsundaylive.com.