SOUL SURVIVOR
Allison Russell mines the past to find a brighter future. By Brett Leigh Dicks
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t was while huddled into a bunk bed on the Our Native Daughters tour bus that the seeds for Allison Russell’s first solo album – Outside Child - were planted. Russell scribbled down lyrics and song ideas while trying to not wake her sleeping daughter as the bus rolled through the night. When Russell returned home to Nashville, she had a four-day window to turn those ideas into something tangible. After rounding up a collection of friends and entering the recording studio little did Russell realize just how tangible the results would be. With the recent release of Outside Child on Concord Records, Russell has been thrust into the musical stratosphere. The album’s release has been a whirlwind for the Nashville-based Canadian including appearances on late night television, a New York Times feature, and Variety predicting the record as album of the year. Having garnered critical acclaim within the North American folk and Americana scene through her bands Po’ Girl and Birds of Chicago, it was the success of Songs of Our Native Daughters - Russell’s 2019 collaboration with Rhiannon Giddens, Amythyst Kiah, and Leyla McCalla - that broadened the awareness of the Nashvillebased Canadian and paved the way for all that was to come. As Russell leads you through the beautifully courageous journey that is Outside Child you quickly realize you’re privy to something very special. While some of the subject matter is harrowing, the album is equally empathetic, consoling, and uplifting. Brett Leigh Dicks recently caught up with the erstwhile Canadian to talk about following in the footsteps of Our Native Daughters, the catharsis of art, and how to be a good ancestor. Even for someone who has been privy to your career since the beginning, this album seemed to come out of nowhere. How and when did Outside Child come about? The songs had been gestating my whole life but I started getting them down while lying in my bunk next to my daughter on the Our Native Daughters tour bus, scribbling things
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down and trying not to wake her. I then had this little window right after AmericanaFest, between the Our Native Daughters tour and a Birds of Chicago tour, where there were four days available at Sound Emporium, my favourite studio here in Nashville. I had just found out I got a Canada Council recording grant and our community of Canadian and American friends were here and available. None of these songs had been played anywhere before. We got together in the middle of the room to work out the song and then recorded it. Every song was three takes and we usually took the second. I didn’t tell anyone what to play. It was truly an in the moment communion and we just happened to capture that. You have written songs and made records for Po’ Girl, Birds of Chicago, and Our Native Daughters. What was it like to finally make a record for Allison Russell? When we started recording the album, I was still in a state of denial about the fact I was even making a solo record because that was such a scary concept to me. To tell my own story in my own words under my own name is something I haven’t felt ready to do before. I went in and recorded and then was back out on the road with Birds of Chicago again and thought, ‘Oh well, I will do something with that sometime.’ And then COVID happened and I had all this time to reflect and ponder. I realized I felt strongly about putting this record out into the world for a number of reasons, not the least I’m a mom now and feel a responsibility to use whatever gifts and tools I have at my ready to try and make things a little better, not just for my daughter but for the generations to come. I want to try and be a good ancestor. This record is also about breaking the silence on cycles of abuse so I began to feel quite evangelical about putting this record out. You had quite a support cast for this album too, everyone from JT Nero through to Erin Rae and Brandi Carlile … My community of artist friends rallied around it. Brandi Carlile actually championed the record and sent it to Margi Cheske, the president of Fantasy Records. >>> 35
