PHOTO : OMARCHEESEBORO / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Russell was placed in foster care , but her mother later regained custody when Russell was five years old , after marrying an American man . Russell ’ s stepfather grew up in segregated , small-town Indiana and brought with him the ingrained racism of that place and time . Though the family was quite poor , they lived in a tiny , subsidized apartment in a well-to-do neighbourhood .
The harsh reality of her childhood obviously shapes Russell ’ s entire perspective on life . But while bitterness and cynicism would be understandable , maybe even expected , she has a remarkably clear and altruistic mindset . For example , as we chatted about being a high-profile Black woman in a predominantly white music scene , I asked if it ever got emotionally exhausting having to constantly take on the role of advocate .
“ I don ’ t get frustrated ,” she replied , “ because my guiding principle is harm reduction . You know , I ’ m a mom and I have the energy , and frankly , it ’ s because of my history — I was raised in a white supremacist family . I was raised being raped by a white supremacist adoptive father . Nothing is as bad as that , frankly . That sounds sort of awful in a way , but that ’ s my truth .”
While living through horrors that are mercifully unimaginable to most people , music was a refuge . Some of Russell ’ s earliest memories are hiding under the piano as her mother played .
“ We had , obviously , a very difficult relationship . And she was very , very young
36 CANADIAN MUSICIAN
ALLISON RUSSELL PERFORMING WITH PO ’ GIRL
when she had me , but that thread of music connected us always ,” Russell explains . “ Even my adoptive father , who was very abusive and very tyrannical about what music we were allowed to listen to , music was still a central thing in our home . It ’ s just in those days , it was mostly Bach and Mozart and Beethoven ; mostly Baroque music that we were allowed to listen to in the home , but I loved it .”
Russell ’ s Scottish grandmother was her entryway to the world of folk music . Through her maternal grandmother , she was introduced to old murder ballads and what she calls the “ hidden canon .”
“ The folkloric songs that we don ’ t know who wrote them , but they ’ ve been distilled and handed down generation after generation . That hidden canon of music that underpins all other music , including Baroque music . Like , Bach was being sung lullabies and being sung ballads and all of the folkloric German traditions that he would have been raised with — that ’ s part of the hidden canon , too . You can hear it in a lot of his melodic choices ,” she says now . “ And so , I got very inspired by those stories . Those stories , essentially , are like underground railroads in a way . They ’ re like distilled maps . It ’ s a lot of trauma . If you listen to ‘ The Banks of the Sweet Dundee ,’ say , and it ’ s about a girl whose parents died , she ’ s raised by an uncle who tries to steal her fortune and marries her off and kills her . It ’ s talking about the everyday things that continue to happen ; abusive situations that many , many women , especially , find themselves in . Those songs , to me , were the first inkling of the hidden network of the underground railroads to freedom . Singing these cautionary tales to one another , or little roadmaps of like , this is how you get out . I really resonated with those songs early on .”
Calling herself a “ deeply nerdy kid ,” Russell even remembers reading The Norton Anthology of English Volume One , which included some children ’ s ballads . She would transcribe the words and make up melodies to accompany them . “ I would make up melodies to all the songs and poems , like in Tolkien or Narnia . That ’ s just how I always translated the world was through music and words . So , it ’ s always been part of me .”
Music was an escape , something that could transport her to somewhere better , if only temporarily . And because of that , she was fiercely protective of it , refusing to let the evil into this realm .
“ My abuser , my adoptive father , was a piano player , as well , and I wanted to learn the piano but he said I had to learn from him , and so I just refused . That was my rebellion was to not let him ruin music for me ,” she says . “ There was some instinct in me where I protected that part . And so , I suppose the fact that I ’ m not a classically-trained singer or something is my rebellion . So was doing roots music and folk music and writing my own songs when , as far as he was concerned , nobody had written anything worth a damn after Mozart . So , that is my rebellion , in a sense , is having the audacity to write and sing the melodies that I hear , and the words that I want to speak .”
As a teenager , she ’ d run away , avoiding the cage of home as much as possible . As a teen , Russell wandered Montreal ’ s streets and parks at all hours , slept in the pews of cathedrals , and played chess with old men in 24-hour cafés . In poetic fashion , she writes about these nights on the Outside Child songs “ Montreal ” ( an ode to the beauty and escape the city offered her teenage self ) and “ Persephone ” ( about a girlfriend who offered love and refuge when she was 15 ):
Your shadows felt like loving arms I was your child , Montreal , You would not let me come to harm
– From “ Montreal ”