6 | encore
THE COLOR OF RHYTHM IN THE AIR Songwriter Eugene H. Russell IV reflects on the experience of setting Beautiful Blackbird to music STORY BY
Sally Henry Fuller
because as a father of little ones... I don't know. Some kids’ music can be so annoying, I’m sorry,” the artist says with a laugh. “But I wanted something that grooved that was fun enough for the kids but funky enough for the parents. You know what I'm saying?” So out came the tunes to Beautiful Blackbird, which sit in a genre of “funky, soulful, family music.”
As a father of two, Eugene Russell IV is quite familiar with the landscape of children’s music. And when he set out to write Beautiful Blackbird, he knew his music had to have much more flare. Mostly, it needed more funk. “I purposely went for something that adults would like as well,
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Russell made a name for himself in Atlanta theatre as an actor, but after releasing solo songs of his own and playing instruments in a few plays and musicals, his first opportunity to actually compose for the Atlanta stage came along with none other than the Alliance’s original 2017 production of Beautiful Blackbird. Alliance’s Director of Education Chris Moses approached Russell to compose the score, and the two were in sync about the vision immediately.
