Rawer Than Raw

At 86, Bobby Rush strips his chitlin-circuit funk down to voice, harmonica, and a foot-stomped floorboard, proving the blues never needed the band to hit hard.

The opening "Down in Mississippi" sets the terms: no drums but Rush's own body keeping time, his harmonica bending notes until they crack like a man talking to himself on a porch. This is the sound he was raised on before amplifiers and horn sections, and he plays it like someone who has nothing left to prove and everything to remember. "Garbage Man" keeps the double-entendre grin that made him a live legend, but the arrangement is so bare you hear every breath between the jokes. The record earned Rush his second Grammy, and it deserved it for one reason — an old man alone in a room can still fill it.