Luther Russell Shares "The Sound of Rock and Roll"

​Russell has partnered with The Big Takeover to premiere his previously unreleased track “The Sound of Rock and Roll,” which can be heard at http://bit.ly/2DrQQoo.

LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Selective Memories: An Anthology offers 41 reasons Luther Russell is so highly regarded by his peers and so treasured by fans, who have fallen in love with his eclectically personal songs, which careen rambunctiously among power pop, rootsy Americana, folk-rock, punk, funk and country. This 2-CD compilation, due Friday, February 23, 2018, via Hanky Panky Records (and as a double cassette on Burger Records), also provides newcomers a wonderful introduction to an artist whose work critics have compared favorably to Wilco, the Replacements, Ryan Adams, Elliott Smith, and Big Star. 

Russell fans will rejoice to discover that this retrospective, spanning 30 years of music-making, heavily favors previously unreleased material — 25 of the 41 tracks, to be precise, are being issued for the first time. There are two early demos (“Got Me on My Knees” and “Interstate 68 Blues”) by the Bootheels, Russell’s teenage band with Jakob Dylan, and one recording (“Smoke Signals”) from Federale, his short-lived group with ex-Black Crowes guitarist Marc Ford. Additionally, the collection holds songs — both released and unreleased — from Russell’s time fronting the 1990s band the Freewheelers (which put out albums for David Geffen’s DGC Records and Rick Rubin’s American Recordings) and from his solo outings. The anthology also comes with a booklet featuring the artist’s own track-by-track annotations as well as liner notes by veteran music writer Bud Scoppa and Larry Crane, editor of Tape Op Magazine.

Chances are that you probably have heard Russell’s work without realizing it. His songs have appeared on all three major TV networks along with HBO and Showtime. He also co-wrote two tunes on Weezer’s 2016 Grammy-nominated self-titled album, and was one of the performers in the recent concert film Thank You, Friends: Big Star’s Third Live … And More. A sought-after producer, Russell has helmed projects for heralded acts such as Richmond Fontaine, Fabiano do Nascimento, Ned Roberts, Sarabeth Tucek, Fernando Viciconte, Calvin Love, and Fever the Ghost. His duo with Jody Stephens, Those Pretty Wrongs, last year released a debut full-length thatPaste called “a great LP that reflects the traditions of past acoustic music,” while All Music praised its “sparse elegance and unabashed sincerity.” Russell currently has been working with another cult rock icon, Robyn Hitchcock, serving as guitarist in Hitchcock’s current band, the L.A. Squires. As Hitchcock himself puts it, “Luther Russell is a joy to listen to and a joy to play music with. He understands something in music that should never be explained.”

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