A half-century into his career in music, folk singer Tom Rush said he's finally figured out that he did it all wrong.
"Looking back on 50 years, I'm realizing it's the writers who are the smart ones. Bernie Taupin doesn't have to go anywhere ---- he just sits home and they mail him checks. Whereas the artists have to go on the road and bang their heads against the road."
It should be pointed out that Rush, who performs at AMSDconcerts in San Diego on Friday, was only kidding. He said that he's managed to make his way in life as a musician was an unexpected delight.
"It still surprises me every day that I manage to make a living doing something I love to do," he said of his career. "I took off from college with an English lit degree and no idea how I was going to make a living with it. But I thought, 'Well, people will pay me money to get up onstage, so I'll do this for a while.'
"To her dying day, my mom wanted to know when I was going to get a real job."
While Bob Dylan was setting Greenwich Village afire during the summer of 1961, Rush was beginning his career playing the same sort of coffeehouses up the coast in Cambridge, Mass.
And while Dylan inspired the entire singer-songwriter movement, in which the performer writes their own songs, Rush has always performed a mix of his own material and covers of songs by other writers.
"I don't think the audience really cares who wrote the song. The audience responds to the recording ---- but they don't respond to it because of who wrote the song. I think that's a mind-set artists may have imposed on themselves, but I don't think the audience imposed it on them.
"I avoid writing as much as possible, because it's hard, discouraging work, so I'm delighted when others write my songs for me."
Rush, whose "What I Know" last year was his first recording of new material in 35 years, said for him, building a set list or ---- less frequently ---- a list of songs to record is about finding the right songs.
"I don't pay much attention to who wrote the songs, they just have to fit."
And he said that many people who are good at singing may not be good at writing ---- or any other aspect of the music business.
"To be a successful artist in that way, you really have to be able to write the songs, and you have to be able to produce the album, you have to be able to sing, you have to be able to play, and then you have to be able to sell it ---- and they're all unconnected skill sets."
When it is time to add new songs to the repertoire, Rush said the songs come via his professional and personal networks.
"It's pretty haphazard ---- it usually involves somebody I know whose taste I respect saying you really ought to hear this song, then I check it out.
"I get way too many unsolicited demos in the mail ---- after thousands of hours listening to them and never having found a song from an unsolicited demo, I've given up" on them.
One writer who contributed a song to the new disc is Jack Tempchin, the Encinitas-based songwriter best known for co-writing some of the Eagles' early hits.
"I know him from years and years ago. I was out in Southern California, and I was told there was this guy who was a really good writer ---- so I called him up, said I was in the neighborhood, can we get together, I'd like to hear some songs.
"He said, 'I can't today, I'm getting married ---- can we do it tomorrow?'
"He pitched me some tunes, including 'Already Gone,' which I passed on.
"I think he just sent me a song out of the blue a year or so ago, and this one, 'East of Eden,' seemed to fit.
"He wants to get together Friday to eat or write, which he said are his two favorite things."
When asked if he and Tempchin really have to choose between eating and writing songs, Rush laughed.
"No, I think we can eat and write at the same time!"
Tom Rush
When: 7:30 p.m. Jan. 8
Where: AMSDconcerts, 4650 Mansfield St. (Normal Heights United Methodist Church), San Diego
Tickets: $25
Info: 619-303-8176 or amsdconcerts.com
Web: tomrush.com
