Biography
Although Claudia Russell began creating music in her youth, an extended period elapsed before she pursued an independent path as a singer and songwriter. Once she began performing her own material, she compensated rapidly for the preceding delay. WUMB FM in Boston designated her Best New Artist of 2000 based on her first release, Song Food. She advanced to finalist status in the Kerrville New Folk songwriting competition during both 1998 and 2002, in addition to reaching the finals of the Sisters Folk Festival Songwriters contest held in Bend, OR, in 2004 and the 2002 KRCL Songwriting Contest staged in Salt Lake City.
Born in Los Angeles, Russell spent her formative years in Park LaBrea, the planned community constructed for aerospace-industry employees. Music filled the household continuously, and creative endeavors received consistent encouragement.
Russell recalled, "My grandfather, Val (Vladimir) Rosing, was a Russian opera singer. He moved to California to direct operas at the Hollywood Bowl and the American Opera Company at the Eastman School in New York. He was married five times. My dad was Val Rosing as well, born Valerian Rosing. He was vocalist for the BBC Dance Orchestra in the 1930s and had the original million-selling hit with 'Teddy Bears' Picnic.' He also played drums in his own band the Rhythm Rascals."
After her father arrived in Hollywood, a business associate there assigned him the Americanized name Gilbert Russell. Russell’s mother, a dancer, traveled nationwide before settling in Los Angeles. Russell joked, "She was in the right place, at the right time, with the right gams, as they used to say in those days." Her mother appeared in White Christmas and An American in Paris while also performing in the chorus line on NBC’s The Jimmy Durante Show.
Russell noted, "After my parents broke up, I remember spending Saturday afternoons listening to music with my Dad. Musicals like South Pacific. He had speakers the size of filing cabinets in his home with his new wife. He was a fan of all music and all things British...even the Rolling Stones. He turned me onto the Beatles, Aretha Franklin, José Feliciano, Ella Fitzgerald, Simon & Garfunkel, and jazz. He was a vocal coach for folks like Natalie Wood, Beau Bridges, and Shirley Jones, as well as younger students that turned him onto things that he passed onto me. I never thought about performing, but I liked music and other girls were learning to play guitar. My dad showed me E, A, and B7, which is a gnarly chord for a kid. He got me lessons, but I didn't like to practice." She acquired Travis picking at Westwood Music and found comfort among emerging folk performers. Russell added, "I could sing even as a child. My dad has an old recording of me singing at four years old and I had pitch. I'm glad he got me to the guitar; it brings me comfort and is my pain relief. I don't think I'd be half as sane as I am, if I wasn't making music."
In her younger years Russell composed songs yet doubted they could compare with those of artists she admired most. During 1969 her stepmother placed a newspaper advertisement reading "Singer looking for a band." Ted Waterhouse, who remained a friend and collaborator decades later, contacted her and invited an audition for his group the Rubber Ducks. At age fifteen she soon fronted the ensemble, delivering covers of rock and folk material such as "White Rabbit" and "Don't Let Your Deal Go Down."
Russell attended CCLA’s Radio Broadcasting Program and served as a DJ at the campus station. While at home she continued writing songs and playing guitar, she lacked a clear route toward a performing career and instead held positions with the LAPD and as a bartender. Ted Waterhouse returned and employed her in his new Western Swing outfit, Tequila Mockingbirds. The band toured nearly three years, supporting strippers and lesser-known comedians. Between road dates Russell recorded demos and contributed background vocals to albums by fellow songwriters.
In 1990 she formed one-third of the Life Is Grand Band alongside Jill Freeman and Laura Zambo-Flores; the trio merged original pieces with satirical rewrites of pop songs delivered through a cappella vocals. Russell persisted in writing yet refrained from sharing her compositions with bandmates, although she did co-write one number with Freeman and Zambo-Flores. Her daytime employment involved staffing the gift-shop counter at the LaBrea Tar Pits. By the mid-1990s she joined songwriter Allison MacLeod in Maggie's Farm. The group secured a contract with an RCA subsidiary, performed at Farm Aid, and received a personal invitation from Kris Kristofferson to open multiple shows for him.
Russell observed, "I was still a closet songwriter, despite all my stage experience singing and playing guitar. I finally took a singing class from Rosemary Butler, who sang with Linda Rondstadt and Jackson Brown, and met other songwriters there who were very encouraging. I also met my husband and musical partner Bruce Kaplan and started a band called Almost Angels, but I still had serious stage fright. We'd play only a few shows every year."
During 1998 she submitted a song to the Kerrville Folk Festival’s new songwriters competition and advanced to the finals. "Bruce and I performed there. The guy who ran it, Rob Kennedy, gave us a pep talk about being writers and artists and that finally gave me permission to become a songwriter."
Back in Los Angeles, Russell, Kaplan, and producer Mark Governer—who composed soundtrack music for directors including Russ Meyers—began work on Song Food, her debut album. The recording received airplay on more than one hundred stations and earned WUMB’s Best New Artist Award. Russell explained, "Bruce and I went out on the road as a duo to support the album. We played from Hollywood to Hyannis, anywhere they'd give us 50 bucks. They say the more you play, the more (your stage fright) goes away, but I wasn't sure. Then we played a pizza place in Vermont. It was so small and so close, that I was almost face to face with the audience. I didn't have time to get frightened and it was a really fun gig."
In 2001 Russell and Kaplan commenced work on her second album, Ready to Receive, during which the pair relocated to Berkeley, CA. The project required roughly four years to complete and built upon the underground attention generated by Song Food. In 2007 she issued Live Band Tonight under the name Claudia Russell and the Folk Unlimited Orchestra, a flexible collective of friends and relatives whose size adjusted according to venue. Russell remarked philosophically, "I'm sporadically touring and working day jobs. Studio work and live gigs are two different animals, but there's room for both of them in the zoo. I sound better live than on record. Bruce says that records are slight of hand, but live gigs are real magic. I use alternative tunings on the guitar and I'm a good fingerpicker and the audience always fuels my passion. I started writing songs a little bit late, but maybe that's a good thing. I can feel it unfolding and beckoning me on and that feels good. These days, I can finally say 'I'm a songwriter.'"
Born in Los Angeles, Russell spent her formative years in Park LaBrea, the planned community constructed for aerospace-industry employees. Music filled the household continuously, and creative endeavors received consistent encouragement.
Russell recalled, "My grandfather, Val (Vladimir) Rosing, was a Russian opera singer. He moved to California to direct operas at the Hollywood Bowl and the American Opera Company at the Eastman School in New York. He was married five times. My dad was Val Rosing as well, born Valerian Rosing. He was vocalist for the BBC Dance Orchestra in the 1930s and had the original million-selling hit with 'Teddy Bears' Picnic.' He also played drums in his own band the Rhythm Rascals."
After her father arrived in Hollywood, a business associate there assigned him the Americanized name Gilbert Russell. Russell’s mother, a dancer, traveled nationwide before settling in Los Angeles. Russell joked, "She was in the right place, at the right time, with the right gams, as they used to say in those days." Her mother appeared in White Christmas and An American in Paris while also performing in the chorus line on NBC’s The Jimmy Durante Show.
Russell noted, "After my parents broke up, I remember spending Saturday afternoons listening to music with my Dad. Musicals like South Pacific. He had speakers the size of filing cabinets in his home with his new wife. He was a fan of all music and all things British...even the Rolling Stones. He turned me onto the Beatles, Aretha Franklin, José Feliciano, Ella Fitzgerald, Simon & Garfunkel, and jazz. He was a vocal coach for folks like Natalie Wood, Beau Bridges, and Shirley Jones, as well as younger students that turned him onto things that he passed onto me. I never thought about performing, but I liked music and other girls were learning to play guitar. My dad showed me E, A, and B7, which is a gnarly chord for a kid. He got me lessons, but I didn't like to practice." She acquired Travis picking at Westwood Music and found comfort among emerging folk performers. Russell added, "I could sing even as a child. My dad has an old recording of me singing at four years old and I had pitch. I'm glad he got me to the guitar; it brings me comfort and is my pain relief. I don't think I'd be half as sane as I am, if I wasn't making music."
In her younger years Russell composed songs yet doubted they could compare with those of artists she admired most. During 1969 her stepmother placed a newspaper advertisement reading "Singer looking for a band." Ted Waterhouse, who remained a friend and collaborator decades later, contacted her and invited an audition for his group the Rubber Ducks. At age fifteen she soon fronted the ensemble, delivering covers of rock and folk material such as "White Rabbit" and "Don't Let Your Deal Go Down."
Russell attended CCLA’s Radio Broadcasting Program and served as a DJ at the campus station. While at home she continued writing songs and playing guitar, she lacked a clear route toward a performing career and instead held positions with the LAPD and as a bartender. Ted Waterhouse returned and employed her in his new Western Swing outfit, Tequila Mockingbirds. The band toured nearly three years, supporting strippers and lesser-known comedians. Between road dates Russell recorded demos and contributed background vocals to albums by fellow songwriters.
In 1990 she formed one-third of the Life Is Grand Band alongside Jill Freeman and Laura Zambo-Flores; the trio merged original pieces with satirical rewrites of pop songs delivered through a cappella vocals. Russell persisted in writing yet refrained from sharing her compositions with bandmates, although she did co-write one number with Freeman and Zambo-Flores. Her daytime employment involved staffing the gift-shop counter at the LaBrea Tar Pits. By the mid-1990s she joined songwriter Allison MacLeod in Maggie's Farm. The group secured a contract with an RCA subsidiary, performed at Farm Aid, and received a personal invitation from Kris Kristofferson to open multiple shows for him.
Russell observed, "I was still a closet songwriter, despite all my stage experience singing and playing guitar. I finally took a singing class from Rosemary Butler, who sang with Linda Rondstadt and Jackson Brown, and met other songwriters there who were very encouraging. I also met my husband and musical partner Bruce Kaplan and started a band called Almost Angels, but I still had serious stage fright. We'd play only a few shows every year."
During 1998 she submitted a song to the Kerrville Folk Festival’s new songwriters competition and advanced to the finals. "Bruce and I performed there. The guy who ran it, Rob Kennedy, gave us a pep talk about being writers and artists and that finally gave me permission to become a songwriter."
Back in Los Angeles, Russell, Kaplan, and producer Mark Governer—who composed soundtrack music for directors including Russ Meyers—began work on Song Food, her debut album. The recording received airplay on more than one hundred stations and earned WUMB’s Best New Artist Award. Russell explained, "Bruce and I went out on the road as a duo to support the album. We played from Hollywood to Hyannis, anywhere they'd give us 50 bucks. They say the more you play, the more (your stage fright) goes away, but I wasn't sure. Then we played a pizza place in Vermont. It was so small and so close, that I was almost face to face with the audience. I didn't have time to get frightened and it was a really fun gig."
In 2001 Russell and Kaplan commenced work on her second album, Ready to Receive, during which the pair relocated to Berkeley, CA. The project required roughly four years to complete and built upon the underground attention generated by Song Food. In 2007 she issued Live Band Tonight under the name Claudia Russell and the Folk Unlimited Orchestra, a flexible collective of friends and relatives whose size adjusted according to venue. Russell remarked philosophically, "I'm sporadically touring and working day jobs. Studio work and live gigs are two different animals, but there's room for both of them in the zoo. I sound better live than on record. Bruce says that records are slight of hand, but live gigs are real magic. I use alternative tunings on the guitar and I'm a good fingerpicker and the audience always fuels my passion. I started writing songs a little bit late, but maybe that's a good thing. I can feel it unfolding and beckoning me on and that feels good. These days, I can finally say 'I'm a songwriter.'"
Albums
