Dick Stusso

Dick Stusso crafts songs as a Bay Area singer and songwriter whose relaxed, genial vocal approach merges a taste for loping, T.Rex-flavored guitar lines and blues-bar balladry with loose, low-fidelity country textures. His easygoing, self-made glam-country sound brings to mind artists such as Mac Demarco, Ultimate Painting, Nap Eyes, and JD McPherson. Born Nic Russo in Oakland, he issued his first album, the self-released Nashville Dreams, in 2014. Seattle’s Hardly Art label later took notice and put out his second full-length, In Heaven, in 2018. He finished writing the material for his next record prior to the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic. More somber and oblique than the earlier releases, S.P. surfaced in 2023 once again through Hardly Art and featured a contribution from his father, Marc Russo, the Grammy-winning saxophonist who has long performed with the Doobie Brothers.