Johnny Bush

Dirty Linen

This is an excerpt from the print edition of Dirty Linen #133 (December 2007/January 2008).
The full article is in the magazine, available on newsstands, by subscription, and at the Dirty Linen webstore.

Johnny Bush

Washing Off the Mud of His Past

by Annette C. Eshleman

Country music artist Johnny Bush was born in 1935 and grew up in Houston, Texas, a product of that city's blossoming music scene. In a recent interview conducted at his San Antonio home, Bush reminisced about growing up poor, his career in country music, his struggles with abuse and the loss of his voice, and his new autobiography.

Much of Bush's early childhood was spent in a working-class neighborhood of Houston called Kashmere Gardens. In recent years (2000-2005, according to The Houston Chronicle) the area has experienced a resurgence of renewed interest. Property values in the traditionally low-to-moderate income neighborhood have increased significantly. However, while Bush was growing up there, he says it had a vastly different atmosphere. "[There were] no conveniences -- no running water, no electricity, no gas. I laugh when I say it: 'White trash' would have been a step up for us," he said. "But everybody lived that way. So we didn't think we were poor until somebody told us."

Bush looks back on that time of his life with a mixture of fondness and disdain. On his family's property, his mother and grandfather dug their water well by hand. And, he recalled, "When we would go with my dad to the other side of town where the streets were paved, there were street lights, and the yards were manicured with flowers. I knew there was another way of life," he said.

To understand Bush, one must understand that those hard years in Kashmere Gardens still loom large in his memory. The title track to his most recent recording, Kashmere Gardens Mud, offers a telling illustration. He explained, "Our streets were paved with oyster shells and they would be crushed down. And when it would rain, it would turn into a kind of a gray, gumbo mud. And when we'd go anywhere, that mud would be on the heels of our shoes and the bottoms of our pant legs. And that would embarrass me," he said. "I would keep my feet and legs under the table. I hated that Kashmere Gardens mud, and I wrote a song about it." And, he added emphatically, "To this day, I can not stand to have mud on the heels of my boots."

Growing up as he did during the 1930s and '40s, Bush remembered, "As I look back, I grew up without realizing what a wonderful time it was to grow up in, because the music was in its infancy." With help from his Uncle Jerry Jericho, who was a local radio personality in country music at the time, as well as inspiration from Lefty Frizzell, Ernest Tubb, Bob Wills, and others, Bush never doubted what he wanted to do with his life. He declared of Frizzell, "When I was 14 years old, I heard that man sing. I knew that's what I wanted to do the rest of my life."

[cover #133]