Tom Russell's Border Dust

Added June 2008

Tom's song "Angel of Lyon" is included on the #1 record in Italy now - by Francesco de Gregori, translated into Italian.

Tom is off to Zaragoza Spain and then three open air dates in Italy.....before returning in July for a tour of the Great American Southwest. Tuscon, Las Cruces and Santa Fe. Dates included on www.myspace.com/russelltom

Shout Factory! Records is re-releasing all of Tom's Hightone records: Borderland and Wounded Heart of America are now available from www.shoutfactory.com

Shout Factory! is also working on a double Tom Russell anthology with will include 39 tracks, many surprises, including two unreleased tracks and Tom's newest song: "Roll the Credits." Should be available in October 08.

The trains with The Flatlanders and Ian Tyson and Eliza Gilkyson still have a few seats. See www.rootsontherails.com

Also upcoming are the Edmonton Folk Festival, New York City's Joe's Pub ,and the October tour of Ireland and England.

--"Me, I'm just on the road, headin' for another joint...." Bob Dylan, "Tangled up in Blue"

Added May 2008

Tom's savage notes from the borderland are available at this new blogger link: www.russelltom.blogspot.com

Yard Dog Folk Art now has prints of "Aztec Jazz." Only fifty were printed on archival paper. See at www.yarddog.com. Also a new painting of Billie Holiday, "Strange Fruit," will soon be available there. New paintings are also included in the myspace slide show: Blue Horses, Red Elephants and Reservation Indians. Inquiries to nadine@tomrussell.com.

Tom headlines Kerrville Folk festival May 25, then it's off to Spain and Italy for four dates. Later in July begins the great Southwest Tour with a return to the Rio Grande Theater in Las Cruces and dates in Santa Fe and Tucson - the historic Congress Hotel, where they caught Dillinger. See My Space or the Main Web.

Edmonton Folk Festival is featured in August; one of the best in the wordl! And then the East Coast, Ireland and the Uk.... and the two Canada trains which are almost full: Flatlanders (Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock), Ian Tyson and Eliza Gilkyson: see www.rootsontherails.com. This is your chance to ride shotgun with the giants of roots music.

This month, Tom will allso be working on a record project with the great Gretchen Peters. A Post Americana, Noir Buckaroo New Age offering....defined to redefine The West and dissolve what's left of all road killed genres. Stay tuned.

Our friend Susan in the Uk also manages a Tom Russell Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tom-Russell/23428354936

Thanks to Jesse at XM Radio for featuring a one hour solo concert recently with Tom - on which he debuted several news songs including "The Coat Hank Williams Wore."

Tom will also participate in a tribute record to Chris Gaffney who passed away last month. Chris was the last of the hard core honky tonkers. Stay tuned.

That's the noticias. Adios....que lo vaya bien.

Added February 2008

LOST ANGELS OF LYON: TOM RUSSELL BAND LIVE IN LYON FRANCE 1989

. . . out now. Available from www.villagerecords.com.

Steve Buschel, an old friend, handed me a CD a year ago. A live concert from Lyon France 1989 and said I ought to listen. I usually don't like to listen to old shows, but this one knocked me out. The band is cooking; there's Springsteen, Tom Waits, and old rock covers . . . and the sound quality is incredible. It was taken from a DAT and it's studio qualtity. We mastered it in Austin a month ago and the engineer, Mark Hallman, said it was the best live recording he has heard in years.

There's nine originals; a tribute to Gram Parsons; raging honkytonk; rocking Tex Mex, Rockabilly, and Rock and Roll. Many thanks to my old friend Jacques Spiry - here's some liner notes Jacques put together for historical facts:

At the time, I was a DJ at ZAP FM, a rock radio station operating out of the "Truck," the best rock stage in the Lyon region then. I had been in contact with Tom Russell for several years. Navajo Production* had just been started with three friends and we had already organized acoustic concerts for Steve Young and Townes Van Zandt.

We decided to rise to the challenge of organizing a concert with the full band at the "Truck.".

We managed to get the best soundman—which shows how motivated we were by the concert—D-Day arrived, the excitement was palpable and I think the Tom Russell Band was in the same state. This recording proves the unbelievable: the concert turned into a real party and Tom spoke and joked a lot with the public. I never heard another band sound as good there. This concert is still one of my best memories and I've always thought that the TRB was one of the best rock & country rock bands in the last 20 years.

The night ended late, after three or four encores and everyone who was there that night still talks about it fondly.

Le Truck has since closed. Navajo Production no longer exists. But Tom Russell has successfully continued his songwriting career as we all know.

Have a good time.

Jacques Spiry / RCF Radio Network

* non-profit association for the promotion of American Roots Music

ROOTS TRAINS

Trains in October with Tom Russell and Michael Martin: Ian Tyson and Eliza Gilkyson, and in November with The Flatlanders (Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock) Tom Russell and Michael Martin . . . starting to fill up. See www.rootsontherails.com, call toll free: 866-484-3669 or email trains@sover.net

AZTEC JAZZ

Tom Russell's new series of paintings opens Feb. 15 at Yard Dog Folk Art Gallery in Austin. A show follows at The Cactus Cafe that night. The majority of the paintings pay tribute to a group of Juarez musicians who lost their lives in a bus accident in 1953. Tom's Bukowski print "Blood of the Gods" is also available in a limited edition of 100 signed museum quality glycee prints. #1-80 are backed with archival reproductions of letters, photos, or paintings sent from Bukowski to Tom. See www.yarddog.com for more information.

AWARD

Tom haswon "song of the year" at Folk Alliance this month for "Who's Gonna Build Your Wall?"

TOUR NEWS

Full Midwest Tour begins in late Feb...

Zaragoza Spain date in June, Edmonton Folk fest in August and full UK and Ireland tour in October.....

Notes, November 21, 2007

Notes, August 31, 2007

The lineup for the Elko Cowboy Poetry Gathering has been announced. It looks killer. Jan 26-Feb 2, 2008. I'll be doing shows with Ian Tyson and Paul Zarzyski as well as my own concert in the big theater. Tickets now available from www.westernfolklife.org or toll free 888-880-5885. There'll be lots of surprises at this one. Trust me. Also hope to be filming this.

There's also a few seats left on the "Great Cowboy Train" across Canada with Ian Tyson and Ramblin Jack at <http://www.rootsontherails.com>www.rootsontherails.com This is early November.

Big Tucson show coming in September with Dave Alvin, Terry Allen, Butch Hancock and Laurie Lewis. September 13.

There's a Bluegrass Festival in Las Cruces on September 22 then a full tour of the West Coast the first two weeks of October: San Diego, L.A., Berkeley, Seattle, Portland etc.
Check the dates on my calendar.

December is a short run through Holland, Belgium, Switzerland and Germany.

BBC Radio 2 (UK) will be running a four part series in November on "The Cowboy's last Ride," with Tom Russell as the presenter.

Working on story on an article on Kerouac's "On the Road" for Paste Magazine.

Recovering from a great five week tour of the UK and Ireland. Looks like October 2008 for the return.

Letterman Show was great and can be seen on the blog on myspace. Christiane Amanapour loved "Who's Gonna Build Your Wall?"

See you on the road.

—TR

July 18, 2007

Two Hundred Degrees in the Shade

They’re getting closer. They’re building a “sewer lift station” near here. I’m mounting a Howitzer on the roof. Ready for a tour of Ireland and England and then a return to New York for The David Letterman show in late August. Then the train to the Copper Canyon in Mexico with new rider Dave Alvin. Almost sold out at www.rootsontherails.com

October will feature a tour of the West Coast from San Diego to Seattle. December we’ll be in Holland, Belgium, Switzerland and Germany. Late January a return to the Elko Cowboy Poetry Gathering with lots of concerts and a song workshop with Ian Tyson.

The new album will be available in a few weeks! 18 Tracks….14 interesting covers from Johnny Cash to Lawrence Ferlinghetti…to four Tom Russell tracks…one lost gem and two new recordings. The original liner notes, which didn’t make the package, are featured below. Please order the record from www.villagerecords.com and you’ll receive a signed art card…..see you down the road. Notes below….

Wounded Heart Songs: Notes

“Tom Russell is Johnny Cash, Jim Harrison, and Charles Bukowski all rolled into one. I feel a great affinity with Tom Russell’s songs, for he is writing from the wounded heart of America."
--Lawrence Ferlinghetti
           
Lawrence Ferlinghetti dipped his finger into a glass of  iced tea and smeared it into the black ink of my portrait. He was sketching me on a paper mat in a café in Japan-Town, San Francisco. “Here,” he said. “It’s you. Tom Russell growing up in America in the 1960’s. The Man From God Know’s Where.” He sketched another and gave them both to me, then handed me the pen. “Always carry a pen like this one. You can smear the ink on these, you see. It’ll serve you well.”

Thank you, Maestro. Last of the Beats.  Riding your bike to work at City Lights. Laboring on your epic “Americus.”  Heh, Lawrence, I’m still that kid rooted in the 1960’s, hiding in my bedroom, reading your “Coney Island of the Mind.” I’m still deep into listening to Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited.” Big voices that inspired me to go out on the road and write songs. I’m still digging your voice and your words. And Dylan’s.

A month ago I found a little cardboard box of CDs, records and tapes in my laundry room. It was stashed behind an African clothes basket and a box of fire wood. Recordings of great voices and friends singing my songs.  Johnny Cash was in there. I sang with Cash a few times in Switzerland and ate a memorable breakfast with him, as he talked about “Blue Wing,” and “Veteran’s Day.” Later that night he helped me sing a verse of “Peace in the Valley,” in front of six thousand people. He sang that verse about the “lion shall lie down with the lamb,” into my ear. It was the voice of God whispering scripture into my bones; my mouth moved like a ventriloquist’s dummy. I was saved.

I could tell you stories of friends and voices.

I met Nanci Griffith, age 19, in the tall grass of Kerrville. That was the year she began driving alone to gigs across America. A young Carson McCullers, or maybe Harper Lee with a Martin guitar. Her songs sparkled like carnival glass on a 1950’s East Texas Midway. Later, Dave Alvin told me he was inspired by “Blue Wing” when he was bottoming out in Nashville – the Place of Dead Roads. Van Ronk? You should have been there when we drank two gallons of cheap white wine and solved the world’s problems. And he passed out on the couch and snored in the key of “A,” and we felt blessed by the Pope of Greenwich Village. Now they’ve named a street after him in New York.

Iris Dement? KKV Records flew us all to the Hardanger Fjord on the West Coast of Norway. We recorded in ancient farm house. We dined on wild elk, salmon, and fresh mushrooms, washed down with the blood of the grape. Later, Joe Ely recorded the soulful and definitive version of “Gallo del Cielo.” He played it for Bruce Springsteen and Bruce wrote me a little note from the hotel in Birmingham, England. He said, “When Joe Ely played me his version of Gallo del Cielo I said, man, who wrote that? Great song.” Gracias. The one-eyed gallo de pelea is still flying.

And Doug Sahm was “Americana” before they coined the term. He would call once a month and lay the news on me in conspirational tones, as if he were divulging the true be-bop bottom line. He warned when I moved to El Paso: “Man, you’re gonna get all fat on that Mexican food.” “I can’t drive down there and visit you,” Doug said. “There’s some Mexican dudes there I know real well, and the cats might steal my Cadillac.” He called me “St. Olav’s.” He loved that song. He loved Norway. “We’re gonna tour there together and kill ‘em, dude.” Then Doug passed on in a Taos Hotel. Bless him.

Then there were the days writing in a Rocky Mountain cabin with Ian Tyson. I was getting a Master’s Degree course in Songwriting. “I fell in love with the English language at age 50,” he told me once.  And then he returned to reading Tennyson’s poems on love. In between sessions we walked over the foothills of the Rockies looking for the sign of the grizzly. Trading anecdotes. Talking songs, women, drink, literature, horses. Watching coyotes fishing for bull frogs. Studying road maps and “Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations.” Raw material. Yes, we were always “gonna write the big one.” We’re still swinging for the fences. We’ll go down swinging.

A lot of stories. And there was so much more in that cardboard box. A version of “Gallo del Cielo from Robert Hunter, the Grateful Dead lyricist, a few months after I’d picked him up in a cab in New York City. “The Eyes of Roberto Duran,” sung by Chris Gaffney. “Biggest Bordertown in the World,” by Bob Neuwirth, after we co-wrote it.

I always lean back on that line from St. Cyril of Jerusalem. “We go to the Father of Souls, but it is necessary to pass by the dragons.” It’s the journey past the dragons, or into its jaws, which gives us the song material.

I am writing this with that felt pen Lawrence Ferlinghetti gave me in San Francisco two years ago. We dip our fingers into a glass of tea and smear the pictures around and sometimes we come up with a song. The songs go out and make their own little histories. They go to hell or prison or end up in the hall of fame. They rattle around in the world and create a magic noise. They call to me in strange, wonderful voices from a cardboard box in the laundry room.

--Tom Russell
El Paso