Tom
Russell
Artist
Bio
Forget everything you've ever known about
Tom Russell. His masterwork about the edge of love, 'Love &
Fear,' will be released by HighTone Records March 21, 2006.
"If American Music needs an heir to Johnny Cash, Tom Russell
might just be the man, He's the real deal." UNCUT 5/04
"The greatest living country songwriter in a man named
Tom Russell; he's written songs that capture the essence of
America, a trait that can only be matched by the country's
greatest novelists..." Rolling Stone, John Swenson
"Tom Russell is an original, a brilliant songwriter with
a restless curiosity and an almost violent imagination."
Annie Prouxl, Pulitzer Prize winning author: "The Shipping
News" & "Brokeback Mountain"
In March 2005 Tom Russell released "Hotwalker" on
Hightone. This "beat montage" on American culture
featured the voices of Jack Kerouac, Lenny Bruce, Dave Van Ronk
and others, and served as a Folk Operatic memoir of the music
and literary characters which influenced Russell's childhood.
The album has made over a dozen top ten "best-of"
lists in Jan 2006. It also served as a Musical soundtrack for
the published letters between Charles Bukowski and Tom Russell
published in Fall 2005. ("Raw Vision", Mystery Island
Press.)
The Associated Press stated: " "Hotwalker" is
a sensory and ideological barrage, yet Russell's songwriting
maintains an uncanny sense of place that advertises him as one
of the remaining guardians of a dwindling narrative sensibility....this
is an ambitious album that ultimately manages to become something
quite rare: a work of art." (Associated Press: 3/7/05)
"Uncut" remarked: "Hotwalker is a colossal achievement...they
should seal this in a vault for posterity." (April 2005)
Stereophile's Robert Baird wrote: "In the lexicon of music
business words and phrases, none inspires more eye-rolling and
trepidation than 'important record,' yet that's what Russell
has made in "Hotwalker."
Tom Russell has recorded one DVD and 20 albums of original material.
His songs have been recorded by Johnny Cash, Nanci Griffith,
Doug Sahm, Dave Alvin, Joe Ely, Ian Tyson and others. He is
credited, along with Dave Alvin, with establishing the Americana
radio format with their co-produced tribute to Merle Haggard,
"Tulare Dust," released on Hightone in 1994. The "Columbus
Other" wrote: "Russell seems to have invented and
keeps reinventing the Americana genre." His songs have
appeared in a dozen films including "Songcatcher"
and "Tremors" and Russell has appeared several times
on "Late Night with David Letterman."
Tom Russell was born in Los Angeles in 1950 and now makes his
home on the border of El Paso-Juarez. He graduated from the
University of California with a Master's Degree in Criminology,
taught school in Nigeria during the Biafran War, and then re
located to Vancouver,Canada.
He began his music career in the bars of Vancouver's skid row.
He has since lived in Austin, San Francisco, New York and, finally,
on a 2.68 badlands farm in the desert of West Texas. In 2005
Hightone Records released "Hotwalker," as well as
the acclaimed DVD "Hearts on the Line" by Eric Temple,
who has directed films for Public Television including "A
Voice in the Wilderness," on Edward Abbey.
Also in 2005 Rounder Records released the compilation "Raw
Vision: The Tom Russell Band 1984-1994: Vintage Americana."
Tom Russell has published three books: A detective novel, and
songwriting compendium of quotes with Sylvia Tyson: "And
then I Wrote: The Songwriter Speaks," (Arsenal-Pulp Press:
Canada) and a book of letters with Charles Bukowski: "Tough
Company." His paintings were recently featured in "Paste"
Magazine and a major Exhibition of his art work will appear
at Yard Dog Folk Art Gallery, Austin, Texas from Feb to April
2006. (www.yarddog.com)
Russell's record "Hotwalker" is the second stage of
a three part American Trilogy which will conclude with a film
and CD on the American West though the eyes of a California
woman. Filming begins in January 06.
The first part of this trilology, "The Man From God Knows
Where," was termed "one of the most important folk
records ever recorded," by John Lomax III. "Rolling
Stone" and UPI journalist John Swenson noted: "Russell
is one of America's great songwriters...this record is as close
to a Homeric treatment of American history as we're ever likely
to see...when somebody is looking for the equivalent to the
Harry Smith anthology in the middle of the next century, "The
Man From God Knows Where" is what they'll discover."
Russell also co-produces concert trains across Canada and Mexico
with promoter Charlie Hunter. Past and current performers include
Nanci Griffith, Eliza Gilkyson, Mary Gauthier, and Ramblin Jack
Eliott. See www.rootsontherails.com
"I think this record is a dangerous
little bus ride forward.... into the ragged outback of love.
Bus stops include: age, drink, insanity, heartbreak, damnation,
redemption, and resurrection. It comes out of three years of
heartbreak and desolation, then trying to come to terms and
write about it. Writing in whatever blood I had left. Tickets
please."
- Tom Russell
