Tom Russell: A Writers' Musician

Nashville, TN (Top40 Charts/ Shore Fire Media) - Tom Russell has attracted some literary giants as fans of his music. It's not surprising given his own hardscrabble narratives and equally interesting autobiographical tales. His newest album, Blood and Candle Smoke (September 15 / Shout! Factory), a collection of powerful observations and deliberations, takes his work to another level. Here are some writers' testimonials on Russell:

"Tom Russell is Johnny Cash, Jim Harrison and Charles Bukowski rolled into one. I feel a great affinity with Tom Russell's songs, for he is writing out of the wounded heart of America."
- LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI, author of A Coney Island of the Mind

"Tom Russell is an original, a brilliant songwriter with a restless curiosity and an almost violent imagination."
- E. ANNIE PROUXL, author of The Shipping News, Brokeback Mountain

"Tom Russell is the voice of America...His songs are our hymns."
- LUIS URREA, author of The Devil's Highway.

"Tom Russell is the most original songwriter out there. Who else can bounce off of the beatitudes and the troubadors, ee cummings and Hemingway, Salinger and Tennessee Williams, Ken Kesey and Graham Greene, all with ease and humor? He packs an amazing mixture into this Great American Novel of an album... Ultimately I am reminded of none of those allusions listed above and think of Tom Russell as the musical equivalent of Cormac McCarthy."
- ALLEN JOSEPHS, Author of The White Wall of Spain, Death and Ritual in the Corrida

"Tom Russell is the last great American voice. With Blood and Candle Smoke he has produced his masterpiece... if Guadalupe doesn't make you want to weep, you're better off with Britney and other nonsense. Every song on this pure gold album is a rare and rarer treasure."
- KEN BRUEN, author of The Dramatist, The Cross

In addition to his music, Russell has also had three books published: a crime novel, a book of songwriter quotations, and a book of letters and interview with Charles Bukowski, another Russell fan. He is currently working on two new books: a collection of essays on the West and a novel about drug wars on the Mexican border.