Tom Rush was recently inducted into the Folk Americana Roots Hall of Fame in Boston.
"When they first contacted me, I thought they said I was being indicted. So being inducted was definitely an upgrade," he quipped.
Tom Rush might have accidentally ushered in the singer-songwriter era when he recorded his seminal album "The Circle Game" in 1968.
Interestingly, the 85-year-old Rush doesn't really identify himself as a folk artist. Folk, he said, is mostly a misnomer when you consider the genre's origin.
"Folk songs are actually the songs that are handed down from generation to generation. Nobody wrote them," he explained during a call last week from his home in Maine. "Every village has a different version. That's a folk song. If you wrote it, it's not a folk song, even if your name's Woody Guthrie, although Guthrie did put new words to traditional tunes, so he was a little bit of a folk singer."
Folk these days is code for artist who plays acoustically.
Which is why Rush, who headlines the Tucson Folk Festival main stage at 8 p.m. Saturday, April 11, likes to refer to himself as a singer-songwriter.
The world would agree. Rolling Stone went as far as to credit Rush with ushering in the genre with his seminal 1968 album "The Circle Game." It was the first recording of songs by Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Jackson Browne, a trio of artists who went on to become superstars.
"I wasn't looking to introduce anybody," Rush said. "I just really needed some good songs in a hurry, and these three brilliant writers all came along within the space of a year and apparently it gave them a boost back when they were just getting started."
Rush didn't know the writers, but his Elektra Records producer introduced him to Taylor.
"They gave us this empty room, no furniture, and we sat on the floor with a tape recorder, and James recorded three or four songs for me," he recalled. "Then he left for England almost immediately, and the rest is history. But I recorded his songs before he did."
Over his nearly seven-decade career, Rush has unintentionally played a role in the careers of a number of artists, including Matt Nakoa, who played with him for a few years before recently going off to Spain to write music for a Broadway play. He never plans it, mind you. It's more of a case of just happening upon untapped genius, like discovering his current accompanist Brendon Cleary performing in a Boston hotel lobby.
Rush invited Cleary to be on his Rockport Sundays weekly online video show, which led to Cleary joining him to sing vocal harmonies and play guitar in his live shows, including at Saturday's Tucson Folk Festival gig.
"He will be doing a few songs on his own during the course of the show, and he will steal the show, and I pay him to do it," he said. "I don't know what is wrong with me, but I'm starting to realize this is a bit of a tradition with me."
Rush says he sings some silly songs and some sad songs in his live shows.
"I'm basically looking for emotional whiplash," he said, mixing up tempos and tones to "keep the audience off balance." That's kinda how he's done it ever since that first time someone paid him for his singing: summer of 1959, busking on the streets of Paris.
"This is my 67th farewell tour, and I'm looking forward to the next 67," he said.
