Press Release - Columbia Records - August 27, 1974

When one thinks of the folk music scene around Boston in the early sixties one name in particular comes to mind .... that of Tom Rush.. His music has never lost its original folk flavor, yet has always remained current ... whether interpreting songs of writers like Jackson Browne and Joni Mitchell or in his own compositions like No Regrets, Rockport Sunday or Wrong End of the Rainbow.

Rush was born in Portsmouth, N.H. and raised in Concord, N. H. He attended public schools through seventh grade and then was sent to Groton School in Groton, Mass. "It was straight out of Dickens, he recalls. It was at Groton that he received his first guitar, and, while he never had lessons, he soon formed a small band to perform at parties and before the Saturday night movies.

"Subsequently, I became interested in folkier music," says Rush, "and when I went to Harvard, I found that Cambridge was the hotbed of folk.

While attending Harvard, Tom started playing in local coffeehouses one or two nights a week and gradually developed a following. He signed with Prestige Records and made a couple of albums for that label, but in the middle of his junior year he dropped out of college to try playing and singing for a living. "I didn't flunk out," he explains, "but I wasn't in good standing either."

Rush eventually returned to Harvard, finished three semesters and graduated. After graduation (with a degree in English Literature), Rush continued to live in Boston, singing occasionally and building larger and larger audiences He was now recording for Elektra.

For a while, Rush worked with a band behind him, but now he's gone solo again. "I like to keep changing, doing different things," he says. "It keeps it interesting."

Tom's last three Lp's ... Tom Rush, Merrimack County and Wrong End of the Rainbow ... have been on Columbia Records.