Songwriter
Tom Russell has long been possessed by the ghosts and places of history, big and small, from
William Faulkner and outlaw Claude Dallas to Jack Johnson,
Little Willie John and
Bill Haley, from Manzanar to Begenfield. There are also dozens of nameless, faceless denizens barely hanging on to the fringes on both sides of the border, cheated endlessly by life yet becoming archetypes in the American myth of
Russell's songs.
Hotwalker is subtitled "
Charles Bukowski and a Ballad for Gone America." This is
Russell's latest conceptual work, a palette of excess lovingly offered to the heroes of his life, those that defined for him the America that has been erased from the popular psychic topography and has entered into the hallways of myth and memory. This is a record of
Russell's aesthetic life and era.
Bukowski is the big patron saint in these songs and monologues, as are
Dave Van Ronk,
Edward Abbey,
Jack Kerouac,
Harry Partch,
Ramblin Jack Elliot, and fabled circus performer Little Jack Horton. The voices of many of these icons waft through the proceedings. Horton was recorded specifically for this offering, but
Abbey,
Bukowski,
Kerouac (accompanied by
Steve Allen),
Lenny Bruce and
Partch are all here too. Singling out these songs would be a disservice to
Russell and to this recording. This is the most haggard of
Russell's albums. It's a wreck in many ways, full of bloated lines and hackneyed melodies and near ranted spoken word pieces. But it hardly matters because polish isn't what fuels a project like this; inspiration is. And
Hotwalker is drenched in inspiration, possessed by it, compelled and driven by it to realize something beyond speech or music; some spectral presence hovers here, and remains for a bit after the set ends. That is its achievement: that one can not only feel
Russell's passion, but can nearly see the scenes and people he portrays here. This is not easy listening, but it just may be necessary. ~ Thom Jurek