Search - Tom Russell :: Indians Cowboys Horses Dogs

Anti-Western art

Jerome Clark | Canby, Minnesota | 03/27/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Tom Russell's new album is to other Western music what the HBO series Deadwood is to other Western movies: pretty much the antithesis. If Larry McMurtry were a folk singer, this is what he might sound like. Russell's is not a golden-hued West but a dark, treacherous place full of characters whose self-destructive impulses often overwhelm whatever heroic ones they may possess. His daring reimagining of the Marty Robbins classic "El Paso" is a case in point. His version banishes all the romance of the original, focuses on the young cowboy's pain, and causes us to shake our heads at his suicidal stupidity. More, in other words, as the Old West was really like, a frontier as much psychic as geographic, populated in good part by men and women temperamentally unsuited to live amid civilized order.Not that the romantic West is entirely absent. "Bucking Horse Moon" could easily be an Ian Tyson song, not the first of Russell's compositions of which that can be said (in any event, Russell and Tyson are occasional collaborators). That's okay. Tyson is as good as they come, and a new Tyson song, even if Tyson didn't happen to write it, is always welcome. More surprising is the stunning version of the mysterious Dylan Western "Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts," which Russell performs in high theatrical fashion in collaboration with Eliza Gilkyson and Joe Ely. Improbably, Russell translates Linda Thompson's fairytale "No Telling" into a hardbitten Western ballad. There is not a single weak cut here. I could not possibly find anything serious to complain about in a singer smart enough to revive the greatest of all dog folk songs, "Old Blue," and then to do it with such good humor and inventiveness.The most striking of the originals is "The Ballad of Edward Abbey," about the late author and environmentalist. Its first verse parodies the opening words of the grim 19th-Century "The Buffalo Skinners" before going on to portray, in crisp, perfect language, a complex man who championed the Western landscape against those who see it only through a haze of dollar signs. Russell admires Abbey but does him the favor of not sentimentalizing him.Russell's actorish singing is occasionally mildly distracting, but no matter. He manages a seamless fusion of modern and traditional sensibility -- philosophical as well as musical -- and in the process creates something that can properly be called real art."

As Advertised

T. Bratz | Beaverton, OR USA | 10/13/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I had never heard of Tom Russell until about a month ago when he was on David Letterman. He sang "Tonight We Ride," on the show and I ordered the cd a day or two later. This disc is exactly what the title says, a collection of songs about cowboys, indians, horses and dogs.



It includes cover versions of some classic Dylan songs and new songs, and has playing in my car quite a bit. I'm not a big country fan, but to me this is not really country music, but a mixture of country, rock and even some folk.



I bought the disc based on one song I heard and was not at all disappointed. The song I had heard was the best song on the disc, but there are some other great songs on here, and not a bad song in the group. I will be adding more of his discs to my collection."

A little bit Johnny Cash...

Dr. Green | Seattle | 08/13/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"...a little bit Lee Hazelwood. I bought this album blind, on a recommendation (probably because I've been on an alt.country buying binge lately), but it's rarely been out of my CD player since. Tom Russell is as much a storyteller as a country musician. It's like the soundtrack of a great 60s western movie that never was."