Ladies Love Outlaws

Sound DNA

• Rock
• Folk Rock

• warm
• earnest
• pastoral

About

Tom Rush has always had the voice to convey great, deep sentiment. He has not always had the songs or the arrangements. While 1968’s <i>The Circle Game</i> upgraded his profile from Cambridge folkie to modern folksinger and is generally acknowledged as his finest hour, <i>Ladies Love Outlaws</i> from 1974 comes a close second. Like <i>The Circle Game</i>, it centers around other people’s songs and Rush’s impeccable interpretive gifts. Both feature Rush’s finest original, “No Regrets,” which appears here like most of the songs in a countrified context. Guy Clark’s “Desperados Waiting for the Train,” Bruce Cockburn’s “One Day I Walk” and Michael Smith’s “Hobo’s Mandolin” (which could easily be mistaken for a Townes Van Zandt tune) are warm, sensitive covers that never fall victim to glossy arrangements or cheap, overblown sentiment. Rush is a master of control and his refined delivery and calm demeanor gives these tunes a reassuring vibe that makes you wish he’d spent more of his career searching the catalog of modern songwriters in need of his sturdy guiding hand.

via Apple Music

Tracklist

Credits