One can’t say that Tom Russell’s songs lack substance.  His songs are of real people, some are gritty, and others romantic, a few political all are filled with images etched in your mind, very real, landscapes of our world.

Russell is a story teller in song, one who allows your mind to take the images from his lyrics and see in your mind that world for which he writes of. A troubadour of the style of Southwestern songwriters for which  Texas is  primarily noted for. But Tom was born in California and his influences are much more far reaching.

The lyrics of “Box of Vision” is the best ever written describing what a song should be. It is a good introduction for what any great song writer hopes for and the perfect song to introduce Tom Russell.

Box Of Visions by Tom Russell

Tom was born and raised in Southern California.  He graduated from the University of California with masters in criminology. He taught school in Nigeria at the time of the Biafran War. He also lived in Spain and Norway and played music at a circus in Puerto Rico. He has published three books, a compendium of songwriting quotes with Sylvia Tyson , and a book of letters with Charles Bukowski.  He is also a painter. He began His music journey in Vancouver singing in strip joints and bars covering Hank Williams songs. That early journey took him to San Francisco, Texas and eventually New York.

Moving to New York he drove a cab and was frequented a few of Andy Warhol’s party’s.  In Queens as a taxi driver he met Andrew Hardin who would become his music partner for nearly 30 years.  Robert Hunter of the Grateful Dead was a passenger in Russell's cab. Russell sang him his song Gallo Del Cielo. An impressed Hunter invited Russell and Hardin first to join him on stage at New York's Bitter End, and then to become his regular opening act.

Tom was moderately successful in the 80’s it was the 90’s where he began to become known as one of the premier songwriters. He had a few commercial hits covered by others, most notably Johnny Cash, Nanci Griffith, Dave Alvin, Suzy Bogguss . But Tom’s best works are his own recordings such as “The Sky Above, The Mud Below”, “California Snow”, “Tonight We Ride”, “St.Olav's Gate”, “Walkin' On The Moon”, “The Eyes Of Roberto Duran", “ Blue Wing", “The Angel Of Lyon", “Mineral Wells and “The Rose of the San Joaquin" to name just a few.

I was a fan of Tom Russell as it was but in 1999 he release and recording that blew myself and many others I knew away. To me it was the greatest folk release of the decade. I received it as a prerelease just as I was taking a break from radio. I put it on the shelf for a month. I picked it up to put in my CD player on a trip I was to make to the San Francisco Bay area. I would receive over 200 CD’s a year at this point but this one I couldn’t get enough of listening to it.  

“Man From God Knows Where” was a the journeys of Russell's ancestors from Europe to America. A story in song. The history of the Russell’s, from Ireland, to Canada, to Iowa onto California. With my  theatre background I thought of the play Quilters, of the Spoon River Anthologies, with folk musicians and music our small all theatre company sent to the Edinburgh Fringe festival winning a Fringe first. It was only lacking dialogue between the tracks to make a theatre piece. Music of Norway and Ireland in addition to American folk and country, Iris DeMent, Dolores Keane and Dave Van Ronk playing the roles of Russell's various ancestors and telling their stories in song. The title came from the epitaph of another Tom Russell, an Irish activist executed in 1803.

The Man From God Knows Where by Tom Russell

Tom was on a roll, "Borderland", "Museum of Memories", "Modern Art", "Indians Cowboys Horses Dogs" were all released  in the next three years, each with great songs. During this time Dylan released one CD that received a Grammy but quite frankly Tom was writing better songs and had been doing so for over a decade.

Then came” Hotwalker”, a CD Tom released that had little that we in the States could play on air because of “language content” . In Canada the entire CD was played on several stations.  It was far different than “Man From God Knows Where” and the second of what Tom says will be his “American Trilogy”

Like “Man From God Knows Where” it was a conceptual piece, inspired by his correspondence with author Charles Bukowski. Subtitled "A Ballad for Gone America", the album features songs and spoken word pieces, many of the latter delivered by another friend of Bukowski, circus midget Little Jack Horton. The sampled voices of Lenny Bruce and Edward Abbey are also heard on an album which takes the form of a musical collage lamenting the passing of the America of Russell's childhood and the Beat generation.

This was art, Dylan and Springsteen may have grabbed the headlines and audience but Russell was doing more interesting work.

Tom Russell is still putting out great pieces. As he gets older he seems to get better, unlike so many other song writers whose early works far eclipse their later works.

In 2007 and 2008  his song “Who’s Going to Build Your Wall” was one of the top songs to receive airplay on independent radio stations and was voted the song of the year by the 3,000+ members  Folk Alliance.

 Tom Russell, Who's Going to Build Your Wall"

Tom is one of those who did not have early fame. You might say he still is not famous, unless you attend Cowboy Poetry festivals or listen to non-commercial radio.

It was with a sense of appreciation when he left the stage at the Kate Wolf Festival last year another performer who is more well known to commercial audiences told me, “Tom Russell is one of our  national treasure”