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Tom Rush

A Harvard-educated folk singer from New Hampshire who was among the first to record songs by Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Jackson Browne, and who wrote "No Regrets".

Origin
Portsmouth, New Hampshire
Years active
1961-present
Genres
folk, blues, country, folk rock
Labels
Prestige, Elektra, Columbia, Appleseed

Concord, Harvard and Club 47

Tom Rush was born on February 8, 1941 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and raised in Concord, where he was the adopted son of a teacher at St. Paul's School. He went to Groton School and then to Harvard, arriving in 1959 and studying English literature; he told one interviewer that having an English literature degree is why he is a musician. He learned ukulele from an older cousin, began as a professional street singing in Europe in the summer of 1959, and hosted Balladeers, a folk show on Harvard's WHRB.

In early 1962 he began playing regularly at the Unicorn Coffee House and at Club 47 in Cambridge, which he called the flagship of the fleet of coffeehouses. Club 47's Betsy Siggins said he was a Harvard student first and a folk musician second. His first record, Tom Rush at the Unicorn (1962, LyCornu), had Fritz Richmond on washtub bass. Got a Mind to Ramble (1963, Prestige) followed, and he made his New York debut at Gerde's Folk City in July 1963.

Elektra and the songwriters

He signed to Elektra in 1965. Take a Little Walk with Me (1966) is generally cited as a folk-to-rock bridge album, and in 1966, on tour, he met Joni Mitchell at the Chess Mate in Detroit, where she played four songs that knocked his socks off. The Circle Game, in April 1968, included songs by Mitchell, James Taylor and Jackson Browne and reached number 68 on the Billboard 200, his highest-charting album. A Rocky Mountain News profile credited him with discovering songwriters before fame, including Mitchell, Taylor, Browne, Jesse Winchester, Guy Clark and Bruce Cockburn; that claim comes mostly from his own side, so it is better read as first to record. James Taylor says Tom was one of his early heroes and one of his main influences.

He moved to Columbia in 1970 with Tom Rush and Wrong End of the Rainbow, then Merrimack County (1972, peaking at 128) and Ladies Love Outlaws (September 1974, peaking at 124). He toured with a five-man band for about five years, then stepped back to his New Hampshire farm.

Symphony Hall and the long return

In 1981 he returned with a sold-out Symphony Hall show in Boston, released as New Year, and began the Club 47 series there in 1982, with concerts broadcast on PBS and NPR. A Carnegie Hall debut came in March 1986. Later records include the 1999 Columbia and Legacy compilation The Very Best of Tom Rush: No Regrets, Live at Symphony Hall, Boston (2001), What I Know (Appleseed, 2009), Voices (2018) and Gardens Old, Flowers New (March 1, 2024, produced by Matt Nakoa). A 50th-anniversary concert at Symphony Hall on December 28, 2012 was funded through Kickstarter, and the 2013 documentary Tom Rush: No Regrets followed him on the road.

He lost his archives and tapes in a fire in the late 1990s. His 2024 tour was billed as his 63rd annual farewell tour, and a 2026 interview calls it the 68th; a Union Chapel show in London on November 1, 2026 is billed as his first London concert since the 1960s. Setlist.fm logs 777 setlists. He has said he does not consider his stuff folk music because it does not fit that definition.

Records

Songs

Joni Mitchell, Guy Clark

Where to go next

Official

Reference

Discography and data

Writing and criticism

Live performance archives

Sources

  1. Tom Rush, Wikipedia
  2. The Circle Game (album), Wikipedia
  3. Tom Rush, The Harvard Crimson (2013-05-27)
  4. Tom Rush official biography, Tom Rush
  5. Tom Rush discography, Tom Rush