TOM RUSH is a gifted musician and performer, whose shows offer a musical celebration…a journey into the tradition and spectrum of what music has been, can be, and will become. His distinctive guitar style, wry humour and warm, expressive voice have made him both a legend and a lure to audiences around the world. His shows are filled with the rib-aching laughter of terrific story-telling, the sweet melancholy of ballads and the passion of gritty blues.

Rush’s impact on the American music scene has been profound. He helped shape the folk revival in the ’60s and the renaissance of the ’80s and ’90s, his music having left its stamp on generations of artists. James Taylor told Rolling Stone, “Tom was not only one of my early heroes, but also one of my main influences.” Country music star Garth Brooks has credited Rush with being one of his top five musical influences. Rush has long championed emerging artists. His early recordings introduced the world to the work of Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne and James Taylor, and in more recent years his Club 47® concerts have brought artists such as Nanci Griffith and Shawn Colvin to wider audiences when they were just beginning to build their own reputations.

Tom Rush began his musical career in the early ’60s playing the Boston-area clubs while a Harvard student. The Club 47 was the flagship of the coffee house fleet, and he was soon holding down a weekly spot there, learning from the legendary artists who came to play, honing his skills and growing into his talent. He had released two albums by the time he graduated.

Rush displayed then, as he does today, an uncanny knack for finding wonderful songs, and writing his own – many of which have become classics re-interpreted by new generations. (It is a testimony to the universality of his appeal that his songs have been folk hits, country hits, heavy metal and rap hits.) Signed by Elektra in 1965, Rush made three albums for them, culminating in The Circle Game, which, according to Rolling Stone, ushered in the singer/songwriter era.

In the early ’70s, folk turned to folk-rock, and Rush, ever adaptable, saw more room to stretch out. Recording now for Columbia, he toured tirelessly with a five-man band, playing concerts across the country. Endless promotional tours, interviews, television appearances, and recording sessions added up to five very successful but exhausting years, after which Tom decided to take a break and “recharge” his creative side at his New Hampshire farm.

Rush returned with a splash in 1981, selling out Boston’s prestigious Symphony Hall in advance. Time off had not only rekindled Rush’s love of music, but it had also re-ignited music audiences’ love of Rush.

He instinctively knew that his listeners were interested in both the old and the new, and set out to create a musical forum – like the Club 47 of the early ’60s – to allow established artists and newcomers to share the same stage. In 1982, he tried it out at Symphony Hall. The show was such a hit it became an annual event, growing to fill two, then three nights and the Club 47 series was born. Crafting concerts that combined well-known artists such as Bonnie Raitt or Emmylou Harris with (then) unknowns like Alison Krauss or Mark O’ Connor, Rush took the show on the road. From the ’80s to the present day, Club 47 events have filled the nation’s finest halls to rave reviews, and have been broadcast as national specials on PBS and NPR.

Matt Nakoa

Brendan Cleary

 “I’ve always had a soft spot for really talented youngsters, and Brendan is one of the most talented I’ve ever encountered.”
— Tom Rush, Folk Legend

In 2019, Brendan Cleary hit the bottom — and his life restarted.

After years of struggling with addiction while fighting to maintain a modest career as a live musician in Nashville, the world finally came crashing down around him. The music did not come naturally like it used to. After a long dark time, Brendan turned to friends and family and asked for help. It was the beginning of the road back to finding his voice again. For more than a year his guitar remained untouched, his songs unplayed. He wondered if he would ever take the stage again.

Playing hotel bars and restaurants, waiting tables, and scratching out vagrant thoughts and rhymes on spare legal pads, Brendan slowly felt his way back to the songwriter he had always been in his heart of hearts. His driving right hand found its signature blend of fingerstyle blues and folk rhythm, his voice carrying the deep, soulful grit that had been waiting to come back.The stories of his early struggles, losses, and triumphs gradually became songs — thrumming troubadour tales of longing and redemption that now echo across rooms where audiences hang on every word.

In 2024, Brendan was named a finalist in the New Hampshire Music Collective Songwriting Competition. Around that same time, folk icon Tom Rush discovered Brendan playing in the bar of a DoubleTree hotel and invited him to appear on his video podcast Rockport Sundays. Since then, Brendan has had the distinct honor of joining Rush as both supporting act and accompanist at concerts across the United States. Brendan has appeared on NHPR’s The Folk Show with Kate McNally, and on WSCA’s The Button Factory Soundcheck.

In 2026, Brendan Cleary is preparing to release his debut studio record, Soundbox, a folk-roots collection of songs that trace the long road through addiction, recovery, redemption, and of course, love. Produced by Carter Sanders, the record gathers together years of hard-won writing — songs shaped on barroom stages, open mics, and late-night notebook pages. Soundbox offers an intimate portrait of a songwriter rediscovering his voice and carrying those stories forward to audiences who recognize pieces of their own lives in the music.