Otis Rush obit

Otis Rush, Chicago's 'king of the hill' blues guitarist, dies aged 84

Key figure of the city’s 50s and 60s blues resurgence famed for I Can’t Quit You Baby and Any Place I’m Going

 He was not on the list.

Legendary Chicago blues guitarist Otis Rush, whose passionate, jazz-like music influenced artists from Carlos Santana and Eric Clapton to the rock band Led Zeppelin, has died at the age of 84.

Rush on Saturday succumbed to complications from a stroke he suffered in 2003, his longtime manager Rick Bates said.

Born in Philadelphia, Mississippi, Rush settled in Chicago as an adult and began playing the local clubs, wearing a cowboy hat and sometimes playing his guitar upside down for effect.

He catapulted to international fame in 1956 with his first recording on Cobra Records of I Can’t Quit You Baby, which reached No 6 on the Billboard R&B charts. He was a key architect of the Chicago “West Side Sound” in the 1950s and 1960s, which modernised traditional blues to introduce more of a jazzy, amplified sound.

“He was one of the last great blues guitar heroes. He was an electric god,” said Gregg Parker, CEO and a founder of the Chicago Blues Museum.

Rush loved to play to live audiences, from small clubs on Chicago’s West Side to sold-out venues in Europe and Japan.

“He was king of the hill in Chicago from the late 1950s into the 1970s and even the 80s as a live artist,” Bates said.

But Rush got less national and international attention than some other blues musicians because he wasn’t a big promoter. He preferred to go out and play and go back and sleep in his own bed,” Bates said. “He was not a show business guy.”

Rush was inducted into the Blues Foundation hall of fame in 1984 and won a Grammy for best traditional blues recording in 1999 for Any Place I’m Going.

In one of his final appearances on stage at the Chicago blues festival in 2016, Rush was honoured by the city of Chicago, according to the Chicago Tribune.

He is survived by his wife, Masaki Rush, eight children and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren, according to a family statement.