Arthur Russell

Early life Russell was born and raised in Oskaloosa, Iowa; his father was a former naval officer who eventually served as mayor of the small city. As a child and adolescent, he studied the cello and piano and began to compose his own music. When he was 18 he moved to San Francisco, where he lived in a Buddhist commune led by Neville G. Pemchekov Warwick. After earning his high school equivalency, he studied North Indian classical music at the Ali Akbar College of Music and Western composition part-time at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He met Allen Ginsberg, with whom he began to work, accompanying him on the cello as a soloist or in groups while Ginsberg sang or read his poetry.

Career 1973–1975: Early years in New York and The Kitchen In 1973, Russell moved to New York and enrolled in a formal degree program at the Manhattan School of Music, cross-registering in electronic music

Embittered by his experience, Russell briefly considered transferring to Dartmouth College at the behest of experimental composer Christian Wolff, whom he had sought out and befriended upon arriving in the Northeast. But after a chance meeting at a Wolff concert in Manhattan, he became close with Rhys Chatham, who arranged for Russell to succeed him as music director of The Kitchen, a downtown avant-garde performance space. As a result, he abandoned his studies and remained in New York. He recorded an acoustic version of the song "Psycho Killer" with the band, playing cello. He would also collaborate on arrangements for early Talking Heads songs. He stated that they became friends but he "ended up not joining the band. They were all from art school and were into looking severe and cool. I was never into that. I was from music school and I had long hair at the time."

Around 1976, Russell became a habitue of New York's nascent underground disco scene, namely Nicky Siano's Gallery on Houston Street in SoHo. In a 2007 interview with Wax Poetics magazine, Siano downplayed the popular myth that Russell's interest in the genre solidified over the course of a single night, noting that "Louis [Aquilone, Siano's best friend and Russell's then-lover] was at the Gallery every single Saturday night. After spending a few Saturday nights without Louis, Arthur decided to come. After the third or fourth time there, he started to come without Louis". Though an eager dancer, Siano has described Russell's style as "strange... outrageous, weird... he was definitely a 'white-boy' dancer." By the time Russell was involved with Tom Lee in the 1980s, his nightlife activities had subsided to a large extent. "It wasn't like Arthur and I were in some gay disco world, getting dressed to go out to the club and dancing the night away," Lee has said. "We'd go to CBGB, we'd go to Max's Kansas City, we'd go to Tier 3 but we'd listen to the group and then go home. For him it was about the daily grind of actually playing music."

In 1977, trenchantly attracted to the minimalist rhythms of disco and funded by Siano's "Gallery war chest", Russell wrote and co-produced "Kiss Me Again" in collaboration with a diverse array of musicians—Flynt, Zummo, Byrne (on rhythm guitar) and Gloria Gaynor veterans Wilbur Bascomb (bass) and Alan Schwartzberg (drums) The first disco single to be released by Sire Records, With a stated ambition to create "the disco white album", the group—under contract to leading underground disco label West End Records—recorded hours of music but only released three songs: "Is It All Over My Face", "Pop Your Funk" (in two disparate arrangements, including a no wave-influenced single edit), and "Tell You Today". D'Acquisto, a non-musician who favored such extemporaneous touches as off-key singing and the input of street buskers, repeatedly clashed with the perfectionist Russell throughout the sessions.

In 1981, Russell and entrepreneur Will Socolov (who partially financed the Loose Joints sessions) founded Sleeping Bag Records. was remixed as a 12" single by Francois Kevorkian. Further Gibbons/Russell collaborations include "C-Thru" (a dance version of "See Through" on World of Echo that remained unreleased until 2010) and a remix of Russell's "Calling All Kids" (eventually released on the 2004 compilation Calling out of Context). The recording was made up of incidental music intended to accompany director Robert Wilson's staging of Medea, a partnership arranged by Glass. Although widely perceived as an important breakthrough for Russell in the compositional world, creative squabbling between the downtown luminaries culminated in Wilson barring the composer from attending rehearsals and eventually ousting Russell from the project altogether in favor of British composer Gavin Bryars. According to Bob Blank in a followup to an Internet reposting of the (purportedly fallacious) 1986 article that detailed the subterfuge, Socolov "wanted to take the label to 'another level". (Upside/Rough Trade, 1986). Heralded as "a magnum opus of sorts" by contemporary critics, it incorporated many of his ideas for pop, dance and classical music for both solo and cello format. The album was well-reviewed in Britain

Russell also collaborated with a number of choreographers, including John Bernd, Diane Madden, Alison Salzinger, Stephanie Woodard, and Charles Moulton. He was also honored with a posthumous Bessie Award in 1993.

1986–1992: Later work, illness, and death Shortly after the release of World of Echo, Russell was diagnosed as HIV-positive. Though the disease caused throat cancer (forcing Russell to undergo chemotherapy), he remained prolific, working on voice-and-cello songs for an album to be released by Philip Glass's Point Music (some of which surfaced on the posthumous Another Thought in 1994) and an electronic pop album (influenced by the likes of 808 State and provisionally titled 1-800-Dinosaur) for Rough Trade Records. Much of the material intended for this project was included on 2004's Calling Out of Context. Although Russell reportedly planned to submit the album in the summer of 1987, he continued tinkering with potential songs for another four years. According to Rough Trade founder Geoff Travis, "It was frustrating, but I knew he needed my support to keep financing his music."

Russell died of AIDS-related illnesses on April 4, 1992,

Russell was prolific, but was also notorious for leaving songs unfinished and continually revising his music. Ernie Brooks said Russell "never arrived at a completed version of anything." Peter Gordon stated, "his quest wasn't really to do a finished product but more to do with exploring his different ways of working musically."

Personal life As a young adult, Russell led a seemingly heterosexual lifestyle; at least two of these relationships (with Muriel Fujii in San Francisco and later Sydney Murray in New York) have been substantiated.

Although he had a brief fling with Allen Ginsberg in 1973, Russell did not begin dating men until becoming involved with hairdresser Louis Aquilone in 1976. Lee, who became a schoolteacher and continued to reside in the couple's rent-controlled East Village apartment until February 2011, is the executor of Russell's estate. Their relationship is detailed at length in Matt Wolf's Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell.

Legacy and influence Though never achieving great success during his lifetime, Russell has been acknowledged as an important influence on a variety of musical developments and artists in recent years. In 2004, Stylus described him as "criminally overlooked for far too long" and "a genius—never to be recognized in his own time, but to be enjoyed by generations to come." PopMatters noted "the contributions Russell made to the disparate genres of dance, disco, dub, and experimental music" and wrote that "his absolute fearlessness in lending his own unique style to even the most unlikely sound combinations is peerless." Vice noted that he "never settled on one genre of music [...] He made winsome country and hypersexual disco and delicate art pop," while drifting through the downtown rock and classical scenes of New York. Bandcamp Daily credited him with "spanning and shaping sounds as far afield as disco, minimalism, avant-garde, new wave, and folk-pop." AllMusic stated that his eclectic music was marked by adventurous production choices and his distinctive singing, Pitchfork called Russell "a changeling artist whose only parallel might be Miles Davis, constantly placing his individual sound in new contexts, constantly searching."

Artists who have cited Russell as an influence include Dev Hynes, The Lemon Twigs and James Murphy. James Blake named his club night and record label after Russell's provisionally titled album "1-800-Dinosaur". Planningtorock covered Russell's song "Janine" on their album W in 2011, and former Everything But The Girl singer Tracey Thorn covered "Get Around to It" on her 2007 solo album Out of the Woods. A tribute EP, Four Songs by Arthur Russell, curated by Jens Lekman, was released in 2007 through Rough Trade Records. In 2014 the HIV/AIDS focused Red Hot Organization released a tribute triple LP compilation, Master Mix: Red Hot + Arthur Russell, included artists Jose Gonzalez, Robyn, Hot Chip, Sufjan Stevens and Devendra Banhart among others. In 2015 Red Hot presented Red Hot + Arthur Russell Live featuring musicians and songs from the tribute at Brooklyn Academy of Music's Howard Gilman Opera House for two nights. In 2016, rapper Kanye West released a track titled "30 Hours" which prominently samples Russell's "Answers Me." In 2018, American musician and composer Peter Broderick released the compilation album Peter Broderick & Friends Play Arthur Russell containing cover versions of songs written by Russell.

Filmmaker Matt Wolf completed a feature-length documentary on Russell called Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell. It premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival on February 13, 2008. Tim Lawrence, an author and academic at the University of East London, has written a biography of Russell, titled Hold On to Your Dreams: Arthur Russell and the Downtown Music Scene, published in 2009. In 2023, poet charles theonia published a long-form work entitled Gay Heaven Is a Dance Floor but I Can't Relax dedicated to Russell, through Archway Editions.

Discography

Studio albums

Solo albums Tower of Meaning (1983, Chatham Square) World of Echo (1986, Upside Records/Rough Trade)

as Dinosaur L 24→24 Music (1982, Sleeping Bag Records)

With The Necessaries Big Sky (1981, Sire Records) Event Horizon (1982, Sire Records)

Compilation albums and EPs Instrumentals (1974 – Volume 2) (1984, Another Side) Another Thought (1994, Point Music) The World of Arthur Russell (2004, Soul Jazz Records) Calling Out of Context (2004, Audika Records) First Thought Best Thought (2006, Audika Records) Springfield EP (2006, Audika Records) Love Is Overtaking Me (2008, Audika Records/Rough Trade) Master Mix: Red Hot + Arthur Russell (2014, Red Hot/Yep Roc) Corn (2015, Audika Records) Iowa Dream (2019, Audika Records) Picture of Bunny Rabbit (2023, Audika Records)

Live albums Sketches for World of Echo: June 25, 1984, Live at EI (2020, Audika Records) The Deer in the Forest: March 2, 1985, Live at Roulette (2020, Audika Records) 24 to 24 Music Live at the Kitchen (2021, Audika Records) Recorded live April 28, 1979. Open Vocal Phrases Where Songs Come In and Out (Live 12/20/85) (2025, Audika Records) Recorded live a EI.

Singles Dinosaur: "Kiss Me Again" (1978). Sire Records. Vocals by Myriam Valle. Produced by Arthur Russell & Nicky Siano. Loose Joints: "Is It All Over My Face" (1980). West End Records. Produced by Arthur Russell & Steve D'Acquisto. Loose Joints: "Pop Your Funk" (1980). West End Records. Produced by Arthur Russell & Steve D'Acquisto. Dinosaur L: "Go Bang" / "Clean on Your Bean #1" (1982). Sleeping Bag Records. Vocals by Lola Blank, Arthur Russell, and Julius Eastman. Loose Joints: "Tell You (Today)" (1983). 4th and Broadway. Vocals by Joyce Bowden. Produced by Killer Whale (Russell) & Steve D'Acquisto. Clandestine feat. Ned Sublette: "Radio Rhythm (S-I-G-N-A-L S-M-A-R-T)" (1984). Sleeping Bag Records. Vocals by Ned Subtlette. Produced by Killer Whale and Ned Sublette. Felix: "Tiger Stripes" / "You Can't Hold Me Down" (1984). Sleeping Bag Records. Vocals by Maxine Bell. Produced by Killer Whale & Nicky Siano. Indian Ocean: "School Bell/Treehouse" (1986). Sleeping Bag Records (US) / 4th and Broadway (UK). Produced by Arthur Russell & Peter Zummo. Arthur Russell: "Let's Go Swimming" (1986). Logarythm (US) / Rough Trade (UK). Produced by Arthur Russell & Mark Freedman. Edited by Killer Whale. Lola (Lola Blank): "Wax the Van" (1987). Jump Street Records. Vocals by Lola Blank. Produced by Bob and Lola Blank. Lola (Lola Blank): "I Need More" (1988). Vinylmania. Vocals by Lola Blank. Produced by Bob and Lola Blank. Arthur Russell: "Springfield" (2006). Audika Records. Includes a remix by The DFA.

Mixes and edits Sounds of JHS 126 Brooklyn: "Chill Pill" (1984). Sleeping Bag Records. "Under Water Mix" by Killer Whale. Bonzo Goes to Washington (Bootsy Collins and Jerry Harrison): "Five Minutes" (1984). Sleeping Bag Records. "R-R-R Radio" and "B-B-B Bombing" mixes "chopped and channeled" by Arthur Russell.