Allison Russell
In the Scene’s 2021 AmericanaFest preview, Allison Russell joked that her nomination for that year’s Emerging Artist of the Year award reminded her of a cicada coming to the surface after 20 years underground. Russell had been a professional songwriter, poet and multi-instrumentalist for nearly that long when her solo debut Outside Child put her on the rise. In September 2023, longtime Nashvillian Russell released her second album, The Returner, on which she weaves threads of roots music, pop, R&B and disco into her tapestry of sound. Ahead of two sold-out shows at The Basement East on Thursday and Friday, we caught up with Russell about her new record, Grammy nominations and playing onstage with living legend and fellow Canada-born artist Joni Mitchell.
“If I had to describe The Returner in one sentence it would be ‘stealing joy from the teeth of turmoil and trauma and tragedy,’” says Russell. Outside Child “broadly reconciled the past” in a folk-driven retelling of her childhood living with an abusive white stepfather. On The Returner, upbeat grooves embody celebration. She bids farewell to the darkness and thrives in the “springtime of [her] present tense.”
Joy comes to Russell in the shape of her beloved circle of collaborators. “Within my career, unprecedented doors opened for Outside Child,” she says. “When a door opens like that, my first thought is, ‘How many people can I bring through this door with me?’”
On The Returner, Russell brings in her musical community The Rainbow Coalition, which counts Chauntee and Monique Ross of SistaStrings, cellist and Americana Award winner Larissa Maestro, drummer Megan Coleman, bassist Ganessa James, and guitarists Megan McCormick, Joy Clark and Mandy Fer among its numerous members. Russell’s “big sisters” Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman — founding members of Prince’s ’80s outfit The Revolution — also made significant contributions.
Russell and her co-producers JT Nero (who’s also Russell’s partner) and Drew Lindsay wrote the record with this wrecking crew in mind. “We were writing towards this circle of just total goddesses who we adore, who are some of our favorite musicians on the planet,” Russell says. Recorded in six days at Henson Studios (formerly home to the legendary A&M Studios) in Hollywood, The Returner reflects a collaborative feat in its mesmerizing virtuosity and scale.
The album’s standout track is “Eve Was Black,” which is nominated for Best American Roots Performance at the upcoming Grammys — one of four nominations for Russell this year. “I feel particularly gratified that it got nominated for an American Roots performance, because of course the Black diaspora for so many years was kind of erased from [the category],” she says. “It was whitewashed.”
Described as an open letter to her abuser, “Eve Was Black” is about the original sin of white supremacy. Over tense strings and a thrumming beat, she sings: “Do you despise, or do you yearn to return / Back to the motherland, back to the garden / Back to your Black skin / Back to the innocence / Back to the shine you lost / When you enslaved your kin?”
“I think there’s been a real opening-up in terms of what people are able to hear and what they are able to engage with,” Russell says of the nomination. While some artists balk at formal institutions like the Recording Academy, Russell sees things differently. Engaging with the systems in place lets her bring her communities into those spaces and hopefully expands representation. “It’s as inclusive as we make it.”
Allison Russell
On “The Returner,” Russell sings: “I can’t think of a thing that hasn’t been born of a dream / Like a love supreme, like a circle unbroken.” How does she stay inspired to dream and have hope for humanity in this day and age? She credits motherhood and her 9-year-old.
“I feel hope watching her and her generation,” says Russell. “I also feel galvanized to do every single thing I possibly can within my limited abilities to reduce harm for them. … There’s nothing more important to me or more urgent to me than to be part of pulling us out of our tailspin.”
Russell uses her platform to speak out and seek change in the state that’s become her adopted home. In March, she took a lead role in producing Love Rising, a benefit show at Bridgestone Arena intended to celebrate queer visibility and to push back against bigoted anti-LGBTQ laws passed by the state legislature.
Russell has even more milestones on the horizon, including publishing a memoir. An event that may make an appearance in the book: In June, she performed as part of the Joni Jam at the Gorge Amphitheatre in Washington state, singing and playing clarinet with Joni Mitchell at Mitchell’s first ticketed concert in more than 20 years. During an encore cover of Frank Sinatra’s “Young at Heart,” Mitchell tossed Russell a surprise clarinet solo.
“You don’t say no to Joni, but that was not planned. Then at the end of it, Joni said, ‘Allison Russell, the most beautiful clarinet player!’ I was like, ‘That is not true, but I love you so much for saying that, and I will carve it onto my gravestone.’”
