https://www.danrussellmusic.com
Dan Russell - by Carter Alan
Echoes: “There’s no love like those younger days; we feel the echoes still today.” (title track) “love whispers into our ears that anything is possible.” Dan Russell
Echoes: The fiery, comet-like passions of early years flash brightly across adolescence, rarely penetrating as brightly into older age. But, persevering even through the longest and strangest trips, the echoes of that devotion can be felt till the end. Available and poignant still to those who care, the embers of love and art remain tangible and accessible.
Dan Russell, artist manager and advocate, concert promoter, producer, creative collaborator, video and film music supervisor, has helped launch a thousand ships throughout his lengthy resume. As the critical aide-de-camp to dozens of aspiring artists and proven superheroes, it seems he’s always been in demand throughout a voluminous 40+ year professional career. Russell built a reputation in music circles as one willing to stand unwavering in the gap. The zeal and focus he lavished on each client or project might have insured a never-ending ‘to do’ list, but also won him a trusted circle of firm and enduring friendships.
His commitment led to decades of work with The Call and its lead singer Michael Been, U2, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Sam Phillips, Andy Pratt, Bruce Cockburn, Switchfoot, Robin Lane, The Vigilantes of Love, Ramona Silver, Rachel Taylor, The Violet Burning, and more. His efforts with Mark Heard culminated in a Grammy award nomination for producing the 1994 “Strong Hand of Love” tribute compilation. In 1998 Russell founded Soulfest, the first New England faith-based social justice music festival, which became an annual event attended by many thousands over the years.
Certainly, Russell’s affinity and success with musicians owes a lot to his own passion for music. After high school, as a singer and guitarist, his great pastime became songwriting. “It was just a cathartic exercise. I’d get together with friends and we would share our songs. We had a desire to convey our thoughts to music and it was fulfilling.”
Over time, his solo voice would submerge, supplanted by writing collaborations, productions, or projects that came his way. “I would befriend or get close to artists. They’d say something like, ‘Hey, I just recorded for a label; do you know how I can get a band?’ So, I’d push my stuff aside and work on their projects.”
But the desire to return to that earlier role, writing and performing his own music, never left Russell. Finally, he made room, placing all the upcoming projects and business interests on hold to
Chase his own muse. The guitars came out of their cases and studio time was booked to record a cache of personal songs, revealing long-overdue cryings of his own heart.
Working with a small band including his son Jesse and guitarist Michael J. Pritzl, both of whom co-produced together, plus Rachel Taylor and Ramona Silver on backing vocals, Russell approached the sessions for his first solo album, Echoes, as a rare gift of time given to himself. “Life is a sacred adventure, a journey, and it was my time to do this,” he relates. “People who are sixty have, like, twelve records out; I’ve got one! We’ll give you the senior discount for the duration!”
Kidding aside, the songs on Echoes are expressions of Russell’s deepest heart and experiences. “My ego won’t support a hoax,” he explains. “If you’re only looking at what’s trending now and writing a song from that, it’s just exploitive and I’d be lying. The authenticity comes from the fact that it’s me; but you and I are not so far from each other. It’s autobiographical and reflects a journey that did not start a minute ago.”
Are these songs all about love? “They’re testing love. ‘Somewhere’ speaks of an experience I had [when] i went far away just to give into temptation so i could see if love was alive. I was looking for a voice within me that i could trust; everything else was just compliments or lies...spies... The cynicism and hopelessness that emerged within me brought me back to a place of believing.”
He continues: “The last verse of ‘rescued’ is ‘everyone a refugee, looking for recovery.’ It essentially unifies us all—We are all refugees, until we come home. The bridge part of that song is, ‘If I have anything at all in this world, it’s your love that rescues me.’ It’s not my status, my properties, even my legacy. It’s just love that breaks the chains in my life and broke the chains that I ultimately put back on myself.”
There’s a political nod in “guns,” originally inspired by George Bush Sr.’s walk into Iraq, but renewed, sadly, on a daily basis. “We need to fight for love and not to blame. War, in and of itself, is a short-sighted [and] evil way to communicate with people.”
“So Naïve” is cast through the cynical viewpoint of a worldly contemporary of Christ. He elaborates that “a holy man, from this guy’s perspective, was pretty naïve.” Russell assumes the character’s skeptical voice: “He likes to eat with the hungry, he’s got some sort of secret plan, he looks at the corruption and poverty without fear. He comes into town bringing peace and love, and the unwavering knowledge that love prevails. In spite of all this, with the current climate, the intrigued skeptic struggles to believe.”
As a bonus, Russell includes his own performance of Mark Heard’s “I Just Wanna Get Warm” from “The Strong Hand of Love” compilation in 1994. Heard’s lyrics of wanting to be authentic in his art and real in his love is a more than an appropriate coda to this, Russell’s first solo album and labor of love, about love. “Listening to these songs,” he adds, I hope people will say, ‘That’s what i was thinking about!’ That’s what a book or a record can do: bring a voice to what people are trying to articulate.”
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCitkviI2I6qNXxRBSj4px3A
