"How great is Tom Russell? Isn't he tremendous? Always the best.
` I would like to quit my job and travel with him....
if the money could be worked out." - David
Letterman, Late Night, 19 April 2006
"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
"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
In March 2006 Hightone Records released Tom Russell's
acclaimed "Love and Fear," eleven new original songs which explore the
raw truth about love. International publications from "New Yorker",
"Village Voice," and "Uncut" have hailed it as Russell's strongest in a
career that has seen two dozen recordings which have ranged from folk,
cowboy, roots and rock, to the far reaches of outsider Americana. The
"fearless story teller" brought his "raw nerved electricity" to the "Late
Night with David Letterman" T.V. show in April of 2006. Letterman
expressed the desire to hit the road with Russell. Paul Schaffer remarked
it was the strongest musical piece presented on the show, so far, in
2006. "Love and Fear," was the number one played Folk Radio Record, and
the number one FARR Report record in March 2006. The record also began to
chart on AAA Radio. The "Village Voice" proclaimed: "Tom Russell is worth
at least a dozen Toby Keiths." The album has created this impact within
six weeks of it's release.
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." "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 three times on "Late Night with David Letterman."
Tom Russell was born in Los Angels 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 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 took place at Yard Dog Folk Art Gallery, Austin, Texas from Feb to
April 2006. (www.yarddog.com) 21 of the 24 paintings were sold the first
few weeks.
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, Claudia Russell. Filming
began 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, Ramblin Jack Eliott and Peter
Rowan. See www.rootsontherails.com
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