I found out about Arthur Russel’s music not too long ago when he showed up on my Spotify radio in a trucker hat holding a cello looking very much like my ex who is a Buddhist and disappeared from this planet (or is just avoiding me and leading a happy, healthy life). I was immediately drawn to the music...it was simple yet complex, upbeat yet rooted in sorrow. I looked through more photographs of him, watched his live performances...he was sharp and present musically yet completely somewhere else mentally. He was the kind of artist who didn’t ask for attention but demanded it. The kind whose intellect, even from the farthest corner of a room, could burn a hole through the wall. His list of collaborators was endless--Philip Glass, Allen Ginsberg, David Byrne, Gloria Gaynor--and he’s continued to inspire contemporary musicians like Dev Hynes, Devendra Banhart, and Frank Ocean. Kanye even released a track that sampled Russel’s “Answer Me” (of course he did, the bastard). He’s made thousands of recordings from pop to folk to disco, all with the same uncanny melodies and complex patterns that so many progressive artists are drawn to.
His earlier works painted pictures of the Iowa countryside...cerulean skies, shades of sienna and ochre smeared through the blur of a passing car window. Love Is Overtaking Me was a very visual album, telling tales of young love, family, and the ultimate need to escape and start a new life someplace unfamiliar. There’s an underlying sense of innocence and maliciousness, exploring the distance we create with our loved ones when we long to better understand ourselves. I couldn’t say it to your face but I won’t be around anymore / I needed a place / So I walked in the door / I couldn’t say it to your face but I won’t be around anymore / It’s my world / It’s my song / Didn’t ask you to sing along.
Arthur left Iowa to go to San Francisco at the tail end of the sixties, where he lived in a Buddhist commune, studied music composition, and met friend and collaborator Allen Ginsberg. Neville Warwick, the leader of the Buddhist commune who Ginsberg admittedly thought was a quack, banished Arthur to a closet for hours on end to practice cello. Once Arthur realized that all he wanted to do was music, he went with Ginsberg back to New York, where they lived in the same building in the East Village on 12th street between 1st and A. Russel became Ginsberg’s music teacher and the two were very close friends until the end of Arthur’s life.
Russel was an outcast. He was obsessive, impulsive, and absolutely nothing came between him and his music. Phillip Glass said Arthur “felt in his bones that he was meant to have a larger audience than he had at that moment.” He was ahead of his time, constantly in another world daydreaming. Once Russel got to New York he quickly became part of the bourgeoning Lower East Side artist scene among the likes of Debbie Harry, Patti Smith, and Richard Hell. He frequented CBGB and Max’s Kansas City until night jutted into morning, and eventually became the music director of The Kitchen on Broome Street. There he booked mostly unknown underground composers and avant-garde performers as well as acts like The Talking Heads and The Modern Lovers. This was how he met David Byrne and bassist Ernie Brooks, who he formed The Flying Hearts with.
The Flying Hearts made two recordings with Allen Ginsberg, as well as wrote and performed the Instrumentals sessions...a 48-hour long orchestral piece that feels like it was recorded in the Alps in a different century. “Ballad of The Lights'' is a catch and release between Ginsberg’s spoken word and Russels bizzare vocals. The song is about how Russel would spend hours sitting on the Hudson, staring across the river at the flickering lights of New Jersey. Please Mr. Mystery / If I’m sitting oh so still / All alone it’s only me / All those lights have lost their meaning. Arthur’s interest in spirituality shines through in “Pacific High Studio Mantras”, where Ginsberg chants over crescendoing percussion and haunting violins.
Arthur went on to make disco music under the moniker Dinosaur L, producing club hits like “Go Bang” and “Kiss Me Again”, which sold over two hundred thousand copies. He was heavily into the nightlife scene and would go out and dance awkwardly at clubs like The Gallery while strobes flashed and sequins shimmered. He would spend all day in his LES apartment making music, and lived with his partner Tom Lee, who was incredibly supportive and enthusiastic throughout their entire relationship.
Arthur, like many New York artists during that time, died of AIDS related complications in ‘92. He released only one solo record during his lifetime, World of Echo, but left behind thousands of recordings, poems, and lyric sheets. Thanks to Tom Lee and Steve Knutson of Audika Records, seven albums were released after his death, perhaps the reason young artists continue to gain awareness of his grandeur and genius.
I wanted to be the time between the waves, the foam they left behind;
the ceaseless repetition and the tiny little blow holes in the sand,
I wanted something broken to repair, to be repaired.
I wanted the cords in your wrists for resistance,
and the blue in the veins in your wrists for their shadows.
Words I’d said I wanted you to say, your saying gave me license to believe,
and you, with thighs that widened to the delta of your hips,
held me as in shallow, salty water barely moving for an hour.
To me, Arthur will always be the poet in the cowboy hat with the prairie at his back, stumbling towards the city, light years ahead of everyone.
