Tom Russell : "Nina Simone"

Tom Russell's song, "Nina Simone," is from his Blood & Candle Smoke album. Here's an extended quote from a review of that recording, written by Rob Browning...

"Cut from the same cloth as songwriting alchemists Kris Kristofferson and Guy Clark, his evocative portraits of everyday life draw as much from Graham Greene as they do Johnny Cash. It's small wonder that Nanci Griffith and Ian Tyson are but two of the many artists who have recorded his material over the years. While Blood and Candle Smoke marks the 25th record that Russell has released to date, his artistic endeavors have not remained confined to the songwriting idiom, encompassing such varied fare as painting, detective novels, songwriting compendiums, and a collection of letters exchanged with besotted Beat auteur Charles Bukowski. Suffice to say, Tom Russell has accomplished much in his 56 years.

Blood and Candle Smoke finds Russell recording at Wave Lab Studios in Tucson, backed by studio proprietors Joey Burns and John Convertino of Calexico. Its songs draw from Russell's wealth of life experience, with many concerning time spent in Africa in his youth. The months prior to the album's release found Russell blogging exhaustively, annotating and embellishing his thoughts on each song's gestation. Each of the 11 songs comprising Blood and Candle Smoke assert plainly that Russell shares both the learned ways of Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash as well as their three note vocal range. Dory Previn, Joan Didion, and Steven Foster are name-checked in the first two songs alone, backed by swaying 6/8 tempos and mariachi trumpets. Nostalgic remembrance of Picasso's death while working at a logging camp and Hemingway allusions are dropped as anecdotally as they are unpretentiously, flying past like so many mental snapshots captured from a bus window.

Stylistically, Blood and Candle Smoke owes much to the stark beauty of Springsteen's Nebraska and the more recent historically-driven Steve Earle fare. Literature and History assert as strong an influence as Art or Love. Nina Simone and Mother Jones are but two of the figures afforded homage: Simone in an eponymous track, and Mother Jones through "The Most Dangerous Woman in America", wherein Russell shares a populist take on the tale of the guardian angel of the Mt. Olive Mines. Contending that the worst part about history is its recountance by staid, less than passionate historians, Russell conveys his message with the color and immediacy of his paintings."

I like what Tom does. You can find in his songs an America that would otherwise disappear.

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Category:

Music

Tags:

• Tom
• Russell
• Songwriter
• Nina
• Simone
• Blood
• Candle
• Smoke
• Doug
• Lang
• paganmaestro

[yooper86]

Great stuff!

[mikitojojo]

Fantastic song and wonderful images!!! Great work...Many thanks.

[teamfab]

Some fantastic images on the video....

[Tex1947]

Damn........this is good stuff!!

[nwrail]

Absolutely superb in every way. Well done indeed.

[9330pablo]

thank you,Russel.

[Zezicumbia]

Quelle belle chanson et quelle belle voix sans oublier la superbe musique.

Merci de ce beau partage.

J'aime beaucoup

Zézicumbia

xxxx

[Gonzo82883]

nice

[aimz54901]

Calexico's horns on this song make it perfect.

[mysteria31]

Oh Doug, Thank you thank! Thank you! This is my favorite song of Blood and Candle Smoke!

love, shel