BOBBY RUSH is a preeminent bluesmen in the world and living legend.  

At 87, Bobby Rush is one of the last living links to the music’s glorious past and an inspiration for its future stars.  He has been making records for nearly 70 years and has nearly 400 recordings and 27 studio albums to his name.  Thanks to his long memory and quick wit, Rush has long ranked as one of the blues’ best storytellers.  

A multiple Grammy winner and nominee, Bobby Rush won Best Traditional Blues Album of the Year in 2017 and 2020.  He was nominated for Hoochie Man (2000), Down in Louisiana (2014) and Decisions (2015).  

Bobby Rush is a Blues Hall of Famer, a Rhythm and Blues Hall of Famer and has exhibits in the Museum of the Blues and in the Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame.  He’s an 18-time Blues Music Award winner including for his 4CD box set Chicken Heads: A 50-Year History of Bobby Rush.  He has been named B.B. King Entertainer of the Year, has a star on Memphis Walk of Fame, has boulevards named after him in Mississippi and Arkansas and a marker on the Blues Highway.  He featured in Eddie Murphy’s Netflix original Dolemite Is My Name and starred in the documentaries Take Me to the River, I Am the Blues and Martin Scorsese’s The Road to Memphis.

 Rush was the first bluesman to perform at the Great Wall of China, attracting an audience of more than 40,000 and earning him the title of  International Dean of the Blues.   Due to his unwavering commitment to touring the Southern States, Rolling Stone Magazine dubbed him “King of the Chitlin Circuit” of which he is duly proud.  

Bobby Rush was born Emmett Ellis, Jr. to sharecropping parents on a farm outside Homer, Louisiana, in 1935.  He twanged a diddley bow before picking up a guitar around age 11.  His preacher father knew enough about a harmonica and the guitar to pass along a few riffs to his son. Ellis Senior moved the family near Pine Bluff, Arkansas in 1948 where the cotton fields were more fertile and Baptist parishes were expanding.

While still a teenager, Rush became a professional blues musician, adopting his stage name so as to not disrespect his devout dad. To sneak into clubs and juke-joints, the underage Rush fashioned a moustache out of matchstick ash. In Pine Bluff, the young bluesman befriended legendary slide guitarist Elmore James and played around the Deep South with him and harmonica ace Little Walter, among others. When Rush moved to Chicago in 1951, he became lifelong friends and frequently performed with Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, B. B. King and most all of the Chicago Blues greats.  

In the late ‘80’s, Bobby Rush moved back to roots of the blues and calls Jackson, Mississippi home.   His devotion to African American audiences makes him a superstar throughout the South and beyond.  He is active with a number of charities and organizations championing equity and voting rights.

Now well into his 8th decade, Rush is as active as ever.  He continues a full-on touring schedule throughout the US and Europe, his acclaimed autobiography, I Ain’t Studdin’ Ya, was published by Hachett Press in 2022 and he is currently mixing his new studio album for release this year.  


STEPHEN LLOYD HELPER is a playwright, librettist, lyricist, director and producer working both in the US and Australia. 

Early in his career, he co-conceived Smokey Joe’s Cafe which holds the record as the longest-running musical revue in Broadway history.  His production of Fiddler On The Roof, for Jerome Robbins, was nominated for the Best Revival Tony Award. His 3-character play, Up and Down is set to star Isabella Rossellini.  His Off-Broadway play, A Sign of the Times, starring Javier Muñoz, was a casualty of the 2020 lockdown before it could be reviewed or videoed.

For many years, Stephen lived in Sydney. His productions at the Sydney Opera House include his iconic Follies in Concert (Sondheim) with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Sondheim’s You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow as their New Year’s Eve Gala, Love Letters.  His Simply Weill - A Kurt Weill Cabaret sold out for multiple weeks. The Sydney Opera House also hosted Stephen’s original Cafe Rebetika! A Story of Passion, Defiance and the Greek Blues (director, co-writer) which toured Australia nationally. He produced and directed Syncopation, by New York playwright Allan Knee and is the most successful tour of any new play (44 theaters) across Australia.

Stephen has been awarded numerous fellowships including with the Yaddo Artists Residency, Bogliasco Foundation (Genoa, Italy), Ragdale Artists Residency and by the Virginia Creative Center for the Arts.
Educated at Yale (Directing/Playwriting), Stephen received a Distinction from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology for his work in its Multi-Cultural Arts Professional Development Program. He has also received a director’s prize from the National Opera Institute. Stephen has taught widely, including at The National Institute for Dramatic Art and the Academy of Film, Television and Theater.  He began his career in New York assisting Jerome Robbins and Arthur Laurents.

Stephen is a member of The Dramatists Guild.