Accompanied by the smokin’ hot guitar pickin’ skills of his Italian sidekick, Max di Bernadi, the bold and brash troubadour upholding the traditions of the West, rambled through a pair of hour long sets with projected passion and an innate ability to stir the immortal cauldron of prose, poetry and song. Ultimately Tom Russell is a true artisan and all assembled partisans were enshrouded in the warmth and sincerity of his desire to entertain with a strong message.
It was eight years since Tom Russell had last been
caught live and this seemed just like a mere flash when he threw in ‘Who’s Gonna Build Your Wall’ as the
evening’s pre-encore finale. Given a timely renewal by the comments of Donald
Trump, the fired up Russell continues to champion the underdog and folks needed
little invitation to share both the words and the sentiment. Forever mischievous
with no shortage of irony, Russell orchestrated the evening with equal amounts
of wit, observation and the sheer totality of mastering the art of the meaningful
folk song. By the time ‘Touch of Evil’
had served as the show’s climax, it was straight to the merch table to seal the
deal of audience inclusion.
After listening to all two and a half hours of THE ROSE OF
ROSCRAE on numerous occasions around release time, thoughts had turned to how
the record would be presented live in lieu of the Broadway musical version. The
veil of intrigue was lifted during the first half of tonight’s show as Russell
served up a precis of the project, merging elongated musings with a select half
dozen of the songs which best represented the album in the gig arena. Few would
argue that ‘The Rose of Roscrae’, ‘Hair
Trigger Heart’, ‘When the Wolves No Longer Sing’, ‘I Talk to God’ and ‘Jesus Met the Woman at the Well’ are
among the cream of the album’s standard songs and all were delivered wrapped in
their mighty grandeur. Okay we didn’t have Gretchen Peters, Maura O’Connell and
the McCrary Sisters to impose their vocal charm, but the lyrical sentiment and
outstanding melodies are perfectly filtered through Russell’s voice and guitar.
On the topic of Gretchen, and jumping ahead a little, without surprise ‘Guadalupe’ did feature in the second
half and her husband Barry Walsh, co-producer of the record, got mentioned as
well.
If you are not excited by an event filled with enlightened
onstage chat and ramblings, Tom Russell may not be up your street, but you will
be missing out on one of America’s great musical preachers encapsulating all that is marvellous about capturing history within the realms of folk music. Being brought
up in Southern California and spending many years frequenting border locations
such as El Paso and Santa Fe, the spiritual excitement and the plight of the Mexican
people is etched far into his heart, as much as the romanticism and reality of
the cowboy. Listening to Tom Russell for two hours is a mind stretching experience
and one highly recommended for anyone remotely interested in the quintessential
history of the wider concept of Americana.
Review of The Rose of Roscrae