Rusty Ends & Hillbilly Hoodoo

Roadhouses, Juke Joints, and Honky-Tonks

Earwig Music

Rusty Ends was exposed to roots music early in life, “I’ve liked the blues since I was in pre-school. I remember hearing Wynonie Harris and Fats Domino and Ivory Joe  Hunter. Living in Kentucky he was also affected by Country music, like Ernest Tubb  and Ray Price with their great honky-tonk sounds. At age eleven, Rusty attended the Kentucky State Fair where he noticed a booth advertising a local music school, and  his mom asked if he wanted to learn to play guitar. Virgil Clopton taught Rusty some  of the era’s luminaries rhythms, like that of Jimmy Reed, Chuck Berry, and Bo Diddley. He joined the local band the “Premiers” before he got out of college, and the horn based “Copper n’ Brass”. Back to billing themselves as the “Premiers” Rusty fronted the Elvin Bishop band on “Out Behind The Barn”. In 1992 Rusty decided he was just going to play Blues. In 1994, Rusty teamed with David Witherspoon, and their Rusty Spoon Blues  Band released “Midnight Screams” and a re-issue was eventually released on the Earwig imprint. In 2020, Rusty Ends and Hillbilly Hoodoo released the studio disk “The Last of the Boogiemen”, also on Earwig.

The current band line-up includes Rusty Ends,vocals and guitar; Dave Zirnheld, vocals and electric bass; Roosevelt Purifoy, piano and organ; Wayne Young, 2nd guitar; and  Gene Wickliffe, drums. The album was recorded, mixed, edited and mastered by Julia Miller at the Delmark Studios, in Chicago, November 4th through 8th, 2024.

The album opens with “Bad Like Billy The Kid” as Rusty sings “I’m rotten…rotten from  my head to my feet…got notches on my pistol, I’m still here…I’m bad like billy the kid”. On the shuffle “The Same Thing”, Rusty sings “it’s a blues thing, it’s the same thing”. On a cover of Lonnie Mack’s 1988 “Honky-Tonk Man”, Rusty belts “I feel my way  around…I’m a honky-tonk man, I have my fun, I’m a honky-tonk man”, with piano from Purifoy.

On “Lost In The Blues”, Rusty cries “lost in the blues, can’t find my way …I’m lost in the blues, don’t know where I’m goin’ don’t know where I’ve been, I’m lost in the blues”, while Purifoy switches to the Hammond organ. “Rockabilly Train”, features Rusty as he chants  “rockabilly train rollin’ down the track, see the train pull in, jump and shout, that rockabilly train really knock me out, rockabilly train rolling down the line”. “Angels Sing The Blues” includes the lyric “when we’re down on the corner with a bottle of wine, that’s when angels  sing the blues…from midnight ’til dawn, that’s when the angels sing the blues, for the  soldiers comin’ home, that’s when the angels sing the blues”.

The cover “(I’m) A Little Mixed Up”, written by Betty James was recorded by Koko Taylor in 1969; Rusty sings “what I know I’m still alive…I’m a little mixed, mixed up about you, I’m a little mixed up and I don’t know what to do…sittin’ here mama wishin’ you’d come home,  I’m a little mixed up and I don’t know what to do”. “The Worm’s Turned”, features Rusty as he chimes “you caught me…I’m crawlin’ like a reptile against the wall…the worm’s turned, treat me like dirt, I’m crawlin’ on my belly like a reptile, you know the worm’s turned”.

“Midnight Screams” is a lover’s lament, “wake up after midnight, I wake up after a dream, I cry out for help, I cry out to heaven, like a midnight scream, I wake up in the wee hours, doesn’t matter where you are, I guess you hear my midnight screams”. “Linda Lu” is a  cover of a 1959 Texas blues, sang by Ray Sharpe on Jamie Records “if you ask my advice I’m gonna’ go back… break my whole heart in two”. “Lie To Me” was written by Rusty, Gene  Wickliffe, and David Zirnheld, bass; as Rusty groans “lie to me, tell me you love me”.

“Thing Called Love”, is a funky tune that reminds me of a song by Bob Dylan, with Purifoy on organ, “there is trouble down below, a rumple in the flow, about this thing called love,  there is trouble down below or up above, what is this thing called love”. “When a Geezer Plays The Blues” written by Rusty with Wayne Young, is the first of two instrumentals. The second instrumental is a tribute to Santo and Johnny inspired by their 1959 megahit  “Sleepwalk”. On the closer, a cover of “Nightlife” credited to Willie Nelson and recorded by,  B.B. King in 1966, and Willie Nelson in 1979, Rusty croons “the Nightlife ain’t the good life, but it’s my life”, with Purifoy on organ.

The Hillbilly HooDoo of Rusty Ends is a beguiling blend of contrasting musical idioms, Rusty states “it’s a combination of our Kentucky roots and the hoodoo beat of New Orleans, with  the greasy kind of swamp stuff. Rusty continues “to this day, I get uncomfortable when people don’t dance, I feel like I’m doing something wrong if I can’t get them up on the dance floor. He says the blues comes from someplace really deep…something really primal, to me, blues is what makes you feel inside”. You’ll feel like dancin’ too when you listen to Rusty.

Richard Ludmerer

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