June 2, 2023: Today, the two-time GRAMMY winner, Blues Hall of Famer, and 16-time Blues Music Awards winner Bobby Rush announced his new album All My Love For You will be released on August 18 via Deep Rush Records / Thirty Tigers. The announcement arrives with the autobiographical new single “I’m the One,”where Rush chronicles his storied life, including learning the blues from B.B. King and Muddy Waters after arriving in Chicago in 1952, and ultimately being the one “who put the funk in the blues.” All My Love For You is now available for pre-order.
About the song, Rush explains: “‘I’m the One’ is a song that I’ve been thinking about all of my life. Ever since 1968, I was in a situation where someone comes to me and said ‘Bobby Rush, your blues is so funky, we don’t know what to call you. Funk, folk, or otherwise.’ They didn’t know what to call me. I was the first man to put the funk in the blues. I want people to know I am still funky, it’s still the blues, it’s just a modification of the blues.”
About All My Love For You, Rush adds: “I wanted to approach this album to be a collection of songs for how I got to where I am now. Sonically I made albums in different directions recently like the solo acoustic Rawer than Raw and full production album Porcupine Meat. I wanted to do something that had the rawness in it, the commercial side of it, and have the Blackness and whiteness inside of it. I want to thank people for letting me be myself. Now I have crossed over but I haven’t crossed out. With the title, I wasn’t talking just about a woman, but everyone who has anything to do with Bobby Rush: the fans, the media, the promoters, the label and distributor, booking agents, management, and anyone else who has contributed to my life and career, this is All My Love For You.”
“I’m The One” follows the release of “One Monkey Can Stop The Show,” which will also appear on the forthcoming album. The song is a callback to his 1995 song “One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show” and was praised byThe Bluegrass Situation, Jazziz and more. The new music follows his Chicken Heads 50th Anniversary EP featuring Buddy Guy, Gov’t Mule and Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, his GRAMMY-winning 2020 album Rawer Than Raw, and his acclaimed autobiography I Ain’t Studdin’ Ya: My American Blues Story. In 2021, Rush was profiled by The New York Times for a career spanning feature following his second GRAMMY win and the release of his book.
Bobby Rush is now on tour and will play Central Park Summerstage in New York supporting Buddy Guy on June 18. Find a full list of tour dates below or visit his website.