Folk singer Tom Rush long ago left rollar-coaster pop world behind

No matter how hard he tries, Tom Rush can't seem to successfully sink into peaceful obscurity.

Folk music fans who happened to catch U2's recent performance on Saturday Night Live were surprised to hear the coda that Bono attached to the end of Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own. As the new song was winding down, the singer added softly:

"I don't want you back/ We'd only cry again/ Say goodbye again."

The lines were from Rush's 1968 song No Regrets. Bono later told Rolling Stone he was a "big fan" of the song:

"That just came into my head on Saturday Night Live. It was the first time I did it. It went through my head, and I sang it."

Calling from his new home in Santa Barbara, Tom Rush is as amused as he is impressed by Bono's homage.

"It's kind of nice," he said, but he's plotting no big comeback. He said that he long ago got off "the pop music roller coaster. You're huge for a while and then you're yesterday. You become a nostalgia act," he said.

The New Hampshire native had made his name in the folk music clubs of Boston. From his first album, 1962's Tom Rush at the Unicorn to Take a Little Walk With Me in 1966, he covered little-known folk and blues tunes including Walkin' Blues, Pallet on the Floor, Nine Pound Hammer and Who Do You Love?

Starting with Circle Game in 1968, he started recording his own songs but became famous for discovering budding songwriters including Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Jackson Browne before the listening public had encountered them.

Songs and songwriters have always come to him, he said, he didn't search them out. "Usually it happens that someone I know - and whose taste I trust - sends me a note saying: 'You should listen to this.'"

In recent years, he has scaled back his performing and recording. "I've got a 5-year-old daughter, Sienna. She makes up songs and sings them at the top of her lungs. She's quite artistic," said Rush with fatherly pride. He also has two grown sons.

His most recent recording was a self-recorded live CD, Trolling for Owls composed entirely of silly songs and funny stories he tells in concert.

Longtime fans reconnected with him when The Very Best of Tom Rush: No Regrets (Columbia/Legacy) was released two years ago. It includes one new Rush composition, River Song, featuring vocals by Shawn Colvin and Marc Cohn.

Rush wrote River Song during the 15 years he lived in Wyoming.

"I never know what a song is really about sometimes until much later. That song is about having your life turned upside down and waiting for it to settle down. At the time I was coming off a divorce. Now, I know what it was about," he said.

Rush has lived through innumerable "folk scares" when fans and performers thought that acoustic music would finally make it big. "Folk, I think, has finally achieved a steady state," he said.

Unlike some diehards, Tom Rush has a glowing opinion of modern technology. "It has really helped to reshape music to benefit musicians," he said.

"It had always been a power struggle with the Industry - with a capital 'I' - that they always won. In the past it was always about shelf space. You couldn't get on the shelf unless you were signed to a major label. Now, most of my albums are back in print and sold through the Internet. People find out about my shows at my Website, www.tomrush.com. I hear my songs are played a lot on the various satellite radio folk channels."

Rush lost all of his archives and tapes in a fire in the late 1990's, so he's eager to hear from fans that have archival material, he said.

"When I was signed to a major label, I had to be against bootlegs. Now, I'm just happy that it was recorded and that the music is getting out there. I always ask for copies," he said.

One piece of his history he recently rediscovered was an October 1972 performance at Denver's legendary Ebbet's Field with the band Orphan. The concert, recorded by Listen Up, recently was rebroadcast on KCUV-AM(1510).

Another bit of nostalgia is Festival Express, the recently released documentary chronicling a raucous rock 'n' roll train trip across Canada in the summer of 1970. Onboard were Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead, The Band, Buddy Guy and the first of the big name singer-songwriters, Tom Rush.

Rush said he's happy the long-delayed film was finally released because his memory of the events a quarter century ago are a little fuzzy.

"Mostly, it was the best party I've ever been to. It was June so the days were very long and the party just kept going. There was a lot of jamming on the train. Unfortunately, we had to stop now and then to play in a stadium and the party would grind to a halt for six hours."

Rush said that he is onscreen for "about 10 seconds. I'm seen dispensing a beverage - actually, pumping Canadian Club - into a girl's mouth," he said with a chuckle. His performance of Murray McLaughlin's poignant A Child's Song is included as a bonus track.

Unlike many on that long, strange trip including Jerry Garcia, Janis Joplin, and several members of The Band, Rush has survived the years, he said, for better or worse.

The great discoverer

Tom Rush's early work covered the little-heard folk and blues songs, but starting with The Circle Game in 1968 he exhibited an uncanny knack for finding great songwriters before they became famous and introducing their songs on his own recordings. Among them:

• Circle Game (1968): Rush introduces Joni Mitchell with the songs Circle Game and Urge for Going, and James Taylor with the songs Sunshine, Sunshine and Something in the Way She Moves.

• Tom Rush (1970): Rush introduces Jackson Browne with These Days

• Wrong End of the Rainbow (1970): Rush introduces Jesse Winchester with Biloxi

• Ladies Love Outlaws (1974): Rush introduces Guy Clark (Desperados Waiting for a Train) and Bruce Cockburn (One Day I Walk)