This week on BWAF I’m shining a light on one of the most electrifying live blues recordings ever made — Otis Rush’s So Many Roads: Live in Japan. Recorded across two unforgettable Tokyo concerts in July 1975, this album captures Otis in full flight: inspired, fearless, and feeding off a crowd that welcomed him like a returning hero.

With Jimmy Johnson’s guitar lines weaving around him and a rhythm section locked tight beneath him, Otis delivers some of the most emotionally charged performances of his career. From the fire of “All Your Love (I Miss Loving)” to the aching beauty of the title track, So Many Roads shows exactly what happens when the blues travels halfway around the world and finds an audience ready to embrace it.

I’ll be diving into the story behind these concerts, the musicians who shaped the sound, and the magic Otis brought to those hot Tokyo nights. It’s a classic album that still hits with full force nearly fifty years later.

Blues With A Feeling — real people, real blues, real stories, real soul.