This LA-born troubadour with a Dustbowl voice works voodoo on his 24th studio album, conjuring ghosts of the ’60s and ’70s along with apocalyptic visions as he relates tales of gun-toting madmen and dark rifts of the heart. If that sounds bleak, well, many of these songs are, though most of their lost-soul characters — including Russell himself, who appears in the autobiographical “East of Woodstock, West of Viet Nam†and “Nina Simone†— are survivors.
Maybe the CD’s message is that there is no such thing as untroubled times or an untroubled mind. When Russell takes his frequently Tex-Mex flavored arrangements into the past, his tales are tangled in poverty and war. When he tells a story in the present, like the busted loser’s eulogy “The Most Dangerous Woman in America†and the environmental-disaster chronicle “American Rivers,†it comes to a bad end.
But ultimately, his dark visions are overpowered by his colorful writing and pure humanity.
TOM RUSSELL | Club Passim, 47 Palmer St, Cambridge | September 30Â at 8 pm | $23-$25 | 617.492.7679 or www.clubpassim.org
