John Bush Shinn III (February 17, 1935 – October 16, 2020) was an American country music singer, songwriter, and musician, nicknamed the "Country Caruso”. He was especially popular in his native Texas.
Bush was born John Bush Shinn III in the Kashmere Gardens neighbourhood of Houston. He listened to the western swing music of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys and the honky-tonk sounds of artists such as Ernest Tubb, Lefty Frizzell, and Hank Thompson. His uncle, the host of a local radio program on KTHT, urged Bush and his brother to play on air, giving Bush his first experience of performing in public.
A series of regional hits on the Stop label, including "You Gave Me a Mountain" (penned by Marty Robbins), "Undo the Right" (penned by Willie Nelson and Hank Cochran), "What a Way to Live", and "I'll Be There" soon followed. Rock critic Robert Christgau said that Bush's version of "You Gave Me A Mountain" "brings a catch to the throat and a tear to the eye." These songs did well in Bush's native Texas, and reached the national top 20.
In 1972, he was signed to RCA Records whose Nashville division was headed by legendary guitarist Chet Atkins. His first RCA single, "Whiskey River" was climbing the charts with airplay on countless radio stations when his voice began faltering. Bush even felt he was being punished by God for his sins. Bush has since said: "I thought because of my promiscuous behaviour and bad choices and being raised as a Baptist, that it was a punishment from God."
Bush lost half of his vocal range and was sometimes unable to talk. RCA dropped him in 1974 after three albums. He developed a drug habit and was often stricken with performance anxiety when he was able to perform at all. After several misdiagnoses, doctors diagnosed the cause in 1978 when they discovered he had a rare neurological disorder called spasmodic dysphonia. Although this did not prevent him from recording, Bush's career began to take a downturn. He worked with a vocal coach in 1985, and was able to regain 70% of his original voice.
Bush teamed with Darrell McCall in 1986, recording a successful honky-tonk album Hot Texas Country and began assembling a large country band (as did Willie Nelson) performing around South Texas. In 1994, the band released Time Changes Everything, the same year that RCA released a greatest-hits album. A major tour soon followed. In recent years, Bush has continued to tour regularly, often performing with Nelson.
Several albums on local Texas labels soon followed. His renewed visibility made him a mentor figure to younger Texas musicians who revered the honky-tonk/hardcore country sound that Bush has done so much to keep in the public eye. Austin musicians such as Dale Watson and Cornell Hurd sought him out to play on their albums.
In 2003, he was inducted into the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame with his lifelong friend Willie Nelson on hand to induct him. In 2007, he released his autobiography, with the aid of Rick Mitchell: Whiskey River (Take My Mind): The True Story of Texas Honky-Tonk, published by University of Texas Press. A new album, Kashmere Garden Mud: A Tribute to Houston’s Country Soul, was released on the Icehouse label at the same time.
With the success of his recent Botox treatments for his vocal condition and his successful career revival, Bush was a spokesman for people afflicted with vocal disorders. In 2002, he was honoured with the Annie Glenn Award from the National Council of Communicative Disorders for Bush's work in bringing attention to the condition of spasmodic dysphonia. Bush self-released The Absolute Johnny Bush, a full-length album of new recordings, in June 2017. It included collaborations with Dale Watson and Reckless Kelly.
Bush died at a hospital in San Antonio on October 16, 2020. He was 85, and suffered from pneumonia in the time leading up to his death.
(Edited from Wikipedia)
For both Johnny Bush CD’s go here:
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Johnny Bush – 14 Greatest Hits (1996 Power Play)
1 Undo The Right
2 You Gave Me A Mountain
3 Each TIme
4 City Lights
5 Jim, Jack, And Rose
6 You Ought To Hear Me Cry
7 Lonely Street
8 Ill Be There
9 Warmth Of The Wine
10 What A Way To Live
11 My Joy
12 Youll Never Leave Me Completely
13 She Just Made Me Love You More
14 Put Me Out Of My Memory
Honky-tonk crooner Johnny Bush is a country music icon in his home state of Texas; to the rest of the world, he is a minor figure with a couple of charting singles in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As evidenced by the 14 treasures included here, the Lone Star folks know exactly what they're talking about when it comes to Texas honky-tonk. Bush's spectacular, almost operatic voice tears into these tunes as if his life depended on it, imparting them each with a palpable sense of pain and longing. Most of these cuts are from Bush's successful late-1960s tenure with little-known Stop Records, and the arrangements stick mostly to whining fiddles and steel guitar. Bush deserves wider recognition from country music aficionados in general, but if you're going to be a local country legend, Texas is certainly the place to do so.
Johnny Bush - Funny How Time Slips Away (2009 Gusto)
1. Funny How Time Slips Away 3:37
2. Wine Me Up 2:36
3. Lonely Street 2:17
4. Darkness On The Face Of The Earth 2:28
5. It´s All Over But The Crying 2:49
6. Until My Dreams Come True 2:28
7. Don´t You Ever Get Tired 2:32
8. Play Together Again Again 2:12
9. Today I Started Loving You Again 2:30
10. Deepening Snow 3:35
11. Mama´s Hungry Eyes 3:29
12. Darling You Know I Wouldn´t Lie 2:33
13. I´ll Go To A Stranger 2:16
14. Way To Survive 2:15
This is a great appendix to Power Play’s essential 14 Greatest Hits: consistently solid, spectacular singing deeply rooted in the Texas honkytonk idiom. The title track is (operatically) spectacular and not of this earth; it will alter your thinking about this song forever. The good news is that all 13 remaining cuts, mostly standards in this roadhouse repertoire (with some rarities added to the playlist), maintain the standard: "Wine me up," "Darkness on the face of the earth" and "Deepening snow" are similarly outstanding, and the welcome Ray Price covers include "Don't you ever get tired of hurting me?" and "I'll go to a stranger."
These are album cuts from the onset of Bush’s long (but interrupted) solo career, expertly produced in Nashville by Pete Drake and Tommy Hill for the indie Stop Records between 1968- and 1972. They predate his more commercial RCA contract (and “Whiskey river”), and the stereo sound is tonkier than on Bush’s RCA sides, successfully evoking the Texican dancehall beat and the abiding Ray Price shuffle. Great recordings from an important artist at his peak even at the outset of an ambitious career.
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