Tom Ashbrook: Bobby Rush, did you feel like part of a change? Or did you feel like you were just playing?

Bobby Rush: I wasn’t doing it for the change. I was doing it because it felt good at the time.

TA: Bobby Rush, you’ve called yourself the freest blues man alive. What do you mean when you say that?

BR: Well I think ’cause I don’t have the managers. I don’t have the record companies telling me when to go, what to do, but I do have a boss. That is the public. And I try to guide myself into what the public would expect me to do and what they’d like to see me do. I kind of studied the public throughout the years, and I think the public want to hear the trueness of a musician, of an entertainer. That’s what I try to present to them. And I think that’s just where I stand, you know.

TA: Bobby Rush, you’re terrific. You’ve been terrific for a long time. We’re honored to have had you with us today and we’re so grateful to you. Thank you so much for joining us.

BR: Well, thank you. The chitlin’ circuit do exist. It’s just in a different form. It’s almost like playing records. If you’ve been in radio for a long time, you remember when we had the 45s, and the 8-tracks and so on and so on. It’s almost like a bathroom. You modify a bathroom, from the 1800s. Once you get in the bathroom then, you do the same thing as now. You change the look of the bathroom, but you don’t change what you do inside.

-from On Point, Monday July 18, 2011, The Chitlin’ Circuit And The Road To Rock And Roll