Originally self-released on Tom Rush's own label (a rare thing for 1962) and later reissued by CBS, Tom Rush at the Unicorn is a warts-and-all live recording of medium fidelity featuring the young folksinger on stage at Boston's leading folk spot, The Unicorn, one of the hotbeds (along with Cambridge's Club 47) of the local folk revival. The 12-track set list is composed entirely of traditional songs, from old familiars like "The Old 97" and "Ramblin' on My Mind" to Woody Guthrie's modern classics "Pretty Boy Floyd" and "Talking Dust Bowl Blues." Rush delivers his material with elan, but in comparison to his later original songs, there's something missing here. Tom Rush here sounds like the collegiate folk fan he was, not the sensitive, nuanced singer/songwriter he would become by the time of 1965's Elektra debut, Tom Rush. Tom Rush at the Unicorn is interesting, but it's juvenilia. ~ Stewart Mason

Rovi