♪ Lights in the valley outshine the sun ♪ ♪ Lights in the valley outshine the sun ♪ ♪ Way beyond the blue ♪ ♪ Way beyond the blue, one more time ♪ ♪ And it's way beyond the blue ♪ - Allison Russell is a dear friend and colleague that I've known for many years and it's wonderful to see how far her star is rising.

She's a beautiful instrumentalist on clarinet and banjo.

She's a wonderful singer with such an unbelievable tone to her voice and intensity to how she performs her songs.

And she's an incredible songwriter.

But one of the things that I love the most about her is that she's a fighter.

She's a fighter for justice.

She's a fighter for inclusion.

She's a fighter for community.

And she's also found a way to tell the story of a very difficult and abusive childhood that doesn't shy away from how hard it was, but that is ultimately uplifting.

(cello and clarinet music) ♪ In the blue camhanaich shimmering still ♪ ♪ Dame Calluna, low lady of the hills ♪ ♪ Cup of cold sun and a winter pill ♪ ♪ Send me back on my way ♪ ♪ Seven black rabbits of Hy-Brasil ♪ ♪ Twenty-one petals of daffodils ♪ ♪ Thirteenth note of the blackcap trill ♪ ♪ I'll fly home today.

♪ (guitar and cello instrumental music) ♪ Blood on my shirt, two ripped buttons ♪ ♪ Might have killed me that time, oh if I'd let him ♪ ♪ He's slow when he's drunk and he ♪ ♪ Lost his grip on me ♪ ♪ Now I'm running down La Rue St. Paul ♪ ♪ Trying to get out from the weight of it all ♪ ♪ Can't flag a cop, I know he won't stop ♪ ♪ I'll go see Persephone ♪ ♪ Tap, tap, tappin' on your window screen ♪ ♪ Gotta let me in Persephone ♪ ♪ Got nowhere to go but I had to get away from him ♪ ♪ My petals are bruised, but I'm still a flower ♪ ♪ Come running to you in the violet hour ♪ ♪ Put your skinny arms around me, let me taste your skin ♪ ♪ Mouth to mouth, mouth to flower ♪ ♪ Salty sweet, you give me power ♪ ♪ I feel you shake under my lips ♪ ♪ Your fingers tender find my secrets ♪ ♪ Don't make a sound, don't cry out, love ♪ ♪ Your parents are sleeping just above ♪ ♪ I kiss you once, I kiss you twice ♪ ♪ Fall asleep looking in each other's eyes ♪ ♪ Tap, tap, tappin' on your window screen ♪ ♪ Gotta let me in Persephone ♪ ♪ Got nowhere to go, but I had to get away from him ♪ ♪ My petals are bruised, but I'm still a flower ♪ ♪ Come runnin' to you in the violet hour ♪ ♪ Put your skinny arms around me, let me taste your skin ♪ (clarinet, guitar, and cello instrumental music) ♪ Light on your shoulder, light on your cheek ♪ ♪ Light tellin' me it's time to leave ♪ ♪ The birds are callin' to the morning ♪ ♪ Your parents' feet above us stirring ♪ ♪ Kiss your belly before I go ♪ ♪ Climb back outta' your basement window ♪ ♪ Back to the cold's bite, back to the hard life ♪ ♪ Back to the harsh bright street ♪ ♪ Tap, tap, tappin' on your window screen ♪ ♪ Gotta let me in Persephone ♪ ♪ Got nowhere to go, but I had to get away from him ♪ ♪ My petals are bruised, but I'm still a flower ♪ ♪ Come runnin' to you in the violet hour ♪ ♪ Put your skinny arms around me, let me taste your skin ♪ ♪ And my petals are bruised, but I'm still a flower ♪ ♪ Come runnin' to you in the violet hour ♪ ♪ Put your skinny arms around me, let me taste your skin ♪ (instrumental music) (music fades) - So for people who are just coming to know Allison Russell can you just give a thumbnail sketch of your musical life, like how you started?

- Sure.

- And how you got to where you are now.

- Okay.

I was born and raised in Montreal in the Eighties and Nineties, and I always sang.

My first songs were renditions of poems in "Lord of the Rings."

- (Rhiannon chuckles) Of course they were.

- Especially the Elvish ones in the Silmarillion, 'cause that's the kind of cool I am.

- I love it.

(both laughing) Oh my God, you're as big a nerd as me.

I knew it.

- [Allison] (laughing )Those are my first attempts at songwriting, were putting those to music.

So that's where things started.

I grew up in a really abusive household.

I grew up with a white supremacist adoptive father, an expat American, who was sexually, physically, psychologically, emotionally abusive.

So it was, music was a refuge.

And I was a reader.

I was a big nerdy reader.

So books and music were definitely a refuge I was very lucky to be in Montreal 'cause we have the Jazzfest every year, free music in the streets, Caribana every year, free music in the streets.

So I was, we have incredible, one of the the oldest synagogue in North America I believe is the Bagg Street Synagogue, near the Mile End neighborhood in Montreal.

And my friend's uncle was the clarinetist and band leader for the Bagg Street Klezmer band.

I feel so lucky that I grew up in that environment with just music everywhere.

My grandma taught at McGill University and I would go visit her sometimes there and listen to the McGill Conservatory students playing.

They were always doing free shows; where I feel like Montreal as a cultural center was a huge part of why I survived my childhood.

I ran away from home at 15 'cause I was safer sleeping in the cemetery and on park benches than I was in the home of the people who called themselves my family at the time.

And eventually I ran all the way, as far as I could get, I wasn't really trying to leave Montreal but I was trying to leave my abuser, and he was harassing me around the city.

So I ended up fleeing as far west as I could, to Vancouver, British Columbia And that's where I connected with my aunt Janet Lillian Russell, who is a beautiful songwriter, who had been part of the folky revival in Montreal around this legendary club called "The Yellow Door," back in the Seventies.

That was...she sings like Linda Ronstadt.

- [Rhiannon] Wow.

- She sounds like her.

She's incredible.

And she really welcomed me into her circle of folkie friends and started inviting me to their potlucks and people were trading songs.

And I started coming out of the closet as a songwriter bit by bit.

I met Trish Klein probably around 2000, 2001, and she played banjo.

- [Rhiannon] Yeah.

- And she was the first person I'd heard play banjo since Kermit the Frog.

- [Rhiannon] Oh my gosh.

- Who was, yes - that's right.

- my first banjo influence.

Thank you, Jim Henson!

- [Rhiannon] Many of us.

Thank you, Sesame Street.

Thank you, Muppet Show.

(both laughing) - Kermit the Frog was my first banjo influence; and hearing her play banjo, I was just so I was so drawn to it, and I knew nothing about the history of the banjo at that point.

I just knew that I was drawn to it.

And we started just writing songs together and playing together.

And eventually we formed a band called "Po' Girl," and put out our first record in 2003.

And, you know, got signed to network, got dropped from network, you know, - [Rhiannon] The story.

(both laughing) - Had a whole, had a whole thing.

I always got a lot of pushback in those days in that world because I was one of the few people of color in that world.

- [Rhiannon] Yes.

- Po' Girl toured from 2003 till 2012.

We were maniacal.

We toured 300 days of the year.

- [Rhiannon] Yes.

And this was not bus touring.

This was poverty, subsistence.

- [Rhiannon] So scrappy... - [Allison] working class, sleeping on floors, you know, sharing the can of beans and the like, the tortilla chips, like that was you know, we were just... we were very feral, I guess?

We didn't have, we never had a manager, but we did these incredible things.

We ended up going to four continents.

We ended up playing... One of my favorite moments that I remember from Po' Girls in 2007, we played a beautiful show in Paris and then we got to go, we were invited, the only North American band that was invited, to this incredible festival called "Massao Women's Festival" in Douala, Cameroon.

- [Rhiannon] Wow.

- And I'll never forget that experience of going back there; and Awna Teixeira, who was my partner in that band after Trish Klein left, she played a gut bucket bass.

And the home of the earth bow, which is the grandmother of the gut bucket bass is Cameroon.

And she got to, like, bring it home.

- [Rhiannon] Right.

- It was so... and people were like, "You play this?"

- [Rhiannon] Yeah, "“What!?

"” Amazing.

- But I didn't find out '‘tiI I met my black family in 2009 that as far as we can trace back, we think Quasheba, our matriarch of my paternal lineage, we think she could have come from Cameroon, for all I know.

She was sold off the coast of Ghana.

But people, as you know, people got kidnapped from all over and then just shipped out of there.

♪ Quasheba, Quasheba ♪ ♪ You're free now, you're free now ♪ ♪ How does your spirit fly?

♪ ♪ Blood of your blood ♪ ♪ Bone of your bone ♪ ♪ By the grace of your strength we have life ♪ ♪ From the Golden Coast of Ghana ♪ ♪ To the bondage of Grenada ♪ ♪ You kept the dream of hope alive.

♪ ♪ They burned your body ♪ ♪ They cursed your blackness ♪ ♪ But they could not take your light ♪ ♪ Quasheba, Quasheba ♪ ♪ You're free now, you're free now ♪ ♪ How does your spirit fly?

♪ ♪ Blood of your blood ♪ ♪ Bone of your bone ♪ ♪ By the grace of your strength we have life ♪ ♪ Raped and beaten, your babies taken ♪ ♪ Sold and starved and sold again ♪ ♪ But ain't you a woman, of love deserving ♪ ♪ Ain't it somethin' you survived?

♪ ♪ Quasheba, Quasheba ♪ ♪ You're free now, you're free now ♪ ♪ How does your spirit fly?

♪ ♪ Blood of your blood ♪ ♪ Bone of your bone ♪ ♪ By the grace of your strength we have life ♪ ♪ You dreamt of home, you dreamt of freedom ♪ ♪ You died enslaved, you died alone ♪ ♪ You came from warriors who once built empires ♪ ♪ Ashanti's kingdom carries on ♪ ♪ Quasheba, Quasheba ♪ ♪ You're free now, you're free now ♪ ♪ How does your spirit fly?

♪ ♪ Blood of your blood ♪ ♪ Bone of your bone ♪ ♪ By the grace of your strength we have life ♪ (cello, banjo, bass, accordion, guitar music) ♪ You were forgotten, almost forsaken ♪ ♪ But your children founded generations ♪ ♪ Your strength sustained them ♪ ♪ We won our freedom ♪ ♪ Traced our roots to find you waiting ♪ ♪ Quasheba, Quasheba ♪ ♪ You're free now, you're free now ♪ ♪ How does your spirit fly?

♪ ♪ Blood of your blood ♪ ♪ Bone of your bone ♪ ♪ By the grace of your strength we have life ♪ ♪ Quasheba, Quasheba ♪ ♪ You're free now, you're free now ♪ ♪ How far your spirit has flown!

♪ ♪ Blood of your blood ♪ ♪ Bone of your bone ♪ ♪ By the grace of your strength we are home ♪ ♪ By the grace of your strength we are home ♪ ♪ we are home ♪ ♪ we are home ♪ ♪ we are ♪ ♪ home.

♪ - During the Po Girl years I met my current partner, my life partner and writing partner and Ida's dad, JT Nero.

We met...I guess we met in 2001, but we got together in 2006.

We formed Birds of Chicago and toured around and we got to open - for Rhiannon Giddens [Rhiannon laughs] on her debut album, "Tomorrow Is My Turn," tour.

We had a baby and brought her up on the road because we learned that we could do that 'cause of you and Aiofe and Caoimhín doing that before us.

And so when we got pregnant (by surprise, you know) we didn't panic 'cause you had already showed us the way that it could be done.

- Birds of Chicago had a great run and maybe it's in indefinite hiatus.

- Yeah, it's in in definite hiatus.

- [Rhiannon] You guys live together.

- we live together.

I mean, and JT is so much a part of the Outside Child project.

- [Rhiannon] Yes.

- I would not have gotten through writing that record without him.

He co-wrote nine of the eleven songs.

He is at the heart of it with me.

- [Rhiannon] He's in the DNA of it.

- He's part of what...he helped me step into my own story.

He encouraged me to do so.

And this, you know the big break never came for Birds of Chicago.

But we kept, you know...if I made art for accolades or awards, I would've quit 20 years ago.

- [Rhiannon] Right.

- So that's not why I make art.

It's a compulsion.

It's a calling.

And it's the joy and the obsession of my life in many ways.

But I was getting to a point of despair with it to the point where I went and I did a yoga teacher training thinking I have to have a plan B, because Ida was wanting to get off the road.

- [Rhiannon] Right.

- Ida was four years old and she was saying, "I wanna go to school."

And then you called me and said "do you wanna do this Native Daughters project?"

- And you wrote such beautiful songs for that project including, ""Quasheba, Quasheba" which -- - "Quasheba, Quasheba" which-- - [Allison] Which we just did.

- [Rhiannon] Which we do.

- a rendition.

- And so that, that record really lifted, I think, a lot of people's awareness.

- [Allison] Yes.

- It really, it kind of came at the right time and the momentum had been, I think, building in a certain way and it was perfect timing-- - [Allison] It was wild.

- [Rhiannon] for you to really just deliver this project.

- Yeah.

And if you had told me when I was 14 that life was gonna get this good -- - I would not have believed it.

- Wow.

- So anyone who needs to hear it: it gets better.

Hang in there.

To circle back to your first question, I think that having all of this happen, this momentum and these door openings, and these kind of platform amplifying moments happen now, just makes me understand the responsibility and feel it, but also it's exciting.

And all of these relationships that we've all built up over 20 years -- [Rhiannon]- That's right.

- are blooming.

[Rhiannon]- Yeah.

- And they're having a chance to...all of these incredible artists within our community that have been below the radar of mainstream.

Hopefully more and more people can learn about our community and feel connected.

We won't survive as a species if we can't get really close and creative and understand that our fates are interconnected completely.

Not just with each other, but with all life on this planet.

[Rhiannon]- Amen.

- Yeah.

(mellow beat) ♪ Yeah, I'm a midnight rider ♪ Stone bonafide night flyer I'm an angel of the morning too Promise that the dawn will bring you, you I'm the melody and the space between Every note the swallow sings I'm fourteen vultures circling I'm that crawling, dying thing I'm the smoke up above the trees, good Lord The fire and the branch that's burning, Lord Maybe you were sleeping, Lord But Mary she's not weeping no more, no-o-o Yeah, I'm a midnight rider Stone bonafide night flyer I'm an angel of the morning too Promise that the dawn will bring you, you, you I'm the sick light of a hurricane's eye I'm a violent lullaby I'm six fireflies, one streetlight I'm a suffocating summer night, mm-hmm, mm-hmm I'm each of his steps on the stairway I'm his shadow in the door frame I'm the tap-tap of a lunar moth I'm the stale beer on his breath, mm-hmm, mm-hmm His soul is trapped in that room But I crawled back in my mother's womb I came back out with my gold and my green Now I see everything Now I feel everything good Lord What the hell could they bring to stop me Lord?

Nothing from the earth, nothing from the sea Not a godalmighty thing Yeah, I'm a midnight rider Stone bonafide night flyer I'm an angel of the morning too The promise that the dawn will bring you, you, you (instrumental music) I'm the wounded bird, I'm the screaming hawk I'm the one who can't be counted out I'm the dove thrown into battle I can roll and shake and rattle, mm-hmm, hmm I'm the moon's dark side, the solar flare The child of the earth, the child of the air I am the mother of the evening star I am the love that conquers all Yeah, I'm a midnight rider Stone bonafide night flyer I'm an angel of the morning too Promise that the dawn will bring you Yeah, I'm a midnight rider Stone bonafide night flyer I'm an angel of the morning too Promise that the dawn will bring you, you, you.

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