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Blood and Candle Smoke

Tom Russell

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iTunes Review

Tom Russell packs a novel’s worth of reflections, traveler’s tales, and experience into the 12 epic songs on Blood and Candle Smoke. (His tunes have been covered by the likes of Johnny Cash, Guy Clark, Nanci Griffith, and k.d. lang during his 40 year career.) Here he’s backed by Joey Burns and John Convertino of Calexico, along with Gretchen Peters on gorgeous backing vocals, and together they create a warm and spacious blend of cowboy songs, Tex Mex, country, blues, and folk. “East of Woodstock, West of Vietnam” and “Criminology” vividly detail Russell's adventures in Nigeria, “Crosses of San Carlos” reflects on American Indians past and present, and “Mississippi River Runnin’ Backwards” is set in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans. He also sings about Mother Jones (“The Most Dangerous Woman In America”) and Nina Simone and sprinkles in lines of American traditional songs like a man who has earned the right to borrow freely from the canon — which he has. Blood and Candle Smoke reveals an expert songwriter and storyteller at the top of his game.

Customer Reviews

Blood and Candle Smoke

Tom Russell has done it again with some of his best writing since Borderland. Guadalupe ranks up there with best he's ever written, as does Nina Simone, Crosses of San Carlos, East of Woodstock and Finding You. I have every CD of his ever available and he continues to write great American music with amazing lyrics. He writes novels in song.

Blood and Candle Smoke

"East of Woodstock, West of Vietnam" has got to be one of the best songs about the sixties ever written. The sixties were a strange time, and the books and music of the era rightly focus mostly on the war and the other political upheavals on the one hand and on the mind-bending cultural liberation on the other. But there was a huge other group of us who fled the death machines for alternatives to the draft, and in doing so found cultures in far places far more alluring and also problematic than what we left in the States. And we never really fit in either among the hippies or the vets. What Tom does with this song is speak truth for all of us who had flowers in our hearts but not in our hair, and sandals on our feet like everyone else in the village. "Barka da aiki Mallam" as they said where I lived. And thanks Tom a lot for helping bring this former African villager home.

Very Well Done

Tom has done it yet again. The only thing I miss is Andrew Hardin's sweet guitar licks. I think they will regret their decision to part ways. Still a great album!

Biography

Born: 1950 in AZ

Genre: Singer/Songwriter

Years Active: '70s, '80s, '90s, '00s, '10s

Americana singer/songwriter Tom Russell was born in Los Angeles in 1950. Raised on the cowboy music of the American West, he grew up to be a talented songwriter, and began issuing albums under his own name in the early '70s. However, Russell's material was also recorded by such luminaries as Johnny Cash, Guy Clark, Dave Alvin, Doug Sahm, and k.d. lang, to name only a few. While much of Russell's work mined the country tradition, he was also known to flavor his work with Tex-Mex, folk, and the cowboy...
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