Preview
TOM RUSSELL AND ANDREW HARDIN
Saturday, September 25
Nickelodeon Folk Music Club
September 27 and 29
Merlot
Thursday, September 30
Rozsa Centre (U of C)
It surprises some people to find out that Los Angeles-born Tom Russell taught criminology in Nigeria during the Biafran war and drove a taxi before choosing to seriously pursue songwriting and performing while in his mid 20s. It’s surprising because within a few years, he was co-writing songs like "Navajo Rug" with Ian Tyson while Johnny Cash, Joe Ely and Guy Clark lined up to record his music. And while many fans consider Russell a full-time musician, the man from God also paints, writes books, and makes movies. His artwork adorns his most recent album, this year’s Indians Cowboys Horses Dogs. He now resides on the outskirts of El Paso, Texas when not touring with longtime musical collaborator Andrew Hardin. Fast Forward heard from Russell via e-mail during his recenttour.
Fast Forward: You were on David Letterman again this month. How do you reconcile playing Letterman one week and somewhere like Merlot the next?Tom Russell: At this point I don't reconcile anything. The contrasts will kill you if you expect anything but ups and downs. Letterman loves the records and has been very kind. As far as weird juxtapositions and Letterman. I was talking to Joe Ely about it. He told me that a few years ago they were on Letterman and did really well, then had to pack up and drive 48 hours straight after the show. They woke up next morning sleeping in a Kansas wheat field with flies buzzing around their faces. There’s your perfect juxtaposition.
Your current album continues to showcase your taste for other gourmet songwriters. How do you pick out a song like (Bob Dylan’s) "Seven Curses" from such a huge catalogue?
"Seven Curses" was something I heard years ago on a bootleg. Dylan wrote it like it emerged intact from folk history. Bob did his homework and most younger writers do not…. Songs or stories that raise the hair up off the back of my neck. Songs that hit me in the heart, soul and gut.... time after time. Like a Van Gogh painting that continues to give and amaze.
You’ve had a fairly rambling and diverse life. If a teenaged songwriter came to you for advice, what would you tell her?
All the road dust eventually shakes itself off into a rhyme. It’s the Gnostic process. Everything you bring forth will save you; everything you do not bring forth will destroy you. Young singer-songwriters? Advice? Go get a job in a bar and learn ten Hank Williams songs. Get lost in Mexico. Do your homework. Learn to walk on the ground before you get up on the high wire. Forget about all this bullshit about folk alliances, conferences and Songwriting For Dummies books, and magazines and technology.... where has it led us? Has all this bullshit created anything better then The Beatles and Dylan and Hank Williams? Hell no. Songwriting is about building on your roots then finding out who you are… and writing down to the blood and bones. You wanna sell out and stand in line with all the other zombies? Well there's buses leaving for Nashville and Austin and Toronto every hour. Get on board little chillen! The promised land? It's the dead fucking the dead… in a vacuum, to quote Bukowski. But then I digress.…
You sing about American history from the ground up, almost at a footprint-heartprint level. Are you ever tempted to make statements in song about the larger political picture of the American present?
Fuck politics. The problem with America and the Middle East and Northern Ireland and every goddamn place is we keep expecting corrupt spiritual people, "politicians," to solve problems that go deep into the bloody realms of religion and culture. The main problem is "my God is better than your God." That’s not solved by politics. It’s solved my some deeper understanding. And that’s where art and deep song reside. That’s where the healing and understanding dwell. I'm riding with Van Gogh. My next record, Hotwalker, features a drunken midget named Little Jack Horton, who rants and raves about this.… We fly the flag at half mast when Ronald Reagan dies... some old political turtle... but not for Ray Charles! Ray Charles and Johnny Cash affected more lives for the good than Reagan did…. Fuck the political process. I have never been tempted to make statements about a large political picture. It's too easy. It makes you a false hero. It takes false courage. It’s what killed Phil Ochs. Dylan solved that problem early on... moving from topical rant to deeper realms.
How is your battle to preserve the farming land around your place going?
Don't get me started. Regardless of what I've said above about politics... the United States is a developer-driven economy. They call it progress. The developers have their mouthpiece lawyers in the city council meeting every morning while the rest of us are making love or rhyming words... how you gonna fight that? Next thing you know there's a Wal-Mart on your front lawn and somebody is jamming MacDonald’s hamburgers up your ass.... We made a film called Save the Valley. It was banned. It's basically three rich white guys who bought up the water rights in El Paso to irrigate their golf courses... selling Mexico back to the Mexicans in the form of cracker-box houses. It's the American way. My three acres have become a fox refuge, I may import mountain lions and wolverines.… I do what I can.
Have I missed asking about something that you would like to talk about or inform your fans about?
I look forward to Alberta. They respect the song up there.... I can also go by and visit that crotchety old bastard Ian Tyson and maybe co-write a song.... he's one of the last of the greats. |
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