A quote got back to Allison Russell from her daughter talking to the daughter of another artist: My mommy “just sings sad songs about her sad past.” She did win a GRAMMY for a song she describes as an open letter to her adopted father — a white supremacist — who abused her throughout her childhood. “Do you hate, or do you lust?” she sings in “Eve was Black.”
Always attune to prophetic words, she accepted the challenge.
On her new album releasing July 10, Allison Russell remains perfectly poignant but a bit more playful. She even includes her daughter’s school choir from the Explore! Community School in East Nashville on the first track.
There’s just one track on “In the Hour of Chaos” that doesn’t include at least one collaborator, which is no surprise to Nashville Public Radio’s senior music writer Jewly Hight, who calls Russell “the consummate collaborator.” Aside from the school choir, Norah Jones, Devon Gilfillian, Joy Oladkun, Brittney Spencer and Sara Watkins all appear on the new album.
Russell calls her circle of friends and collaborators “the Rainbow Coalition.” And as you’ll learn in this interview, you may already be part of the coalition and just don’t know it yet.
This episode was produced by Blake Farmer.
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