Growing up in 1940s Los Angeles, Tom Russell saw blues heroes Lightnin' Hopkins
and Mance Lipscomb at small clubs, heard Buck Owens and Johnny Cash on country
radio, discovered the beat poets and was inspired by the great songwriters like
Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. His generation of friends were partly defined by
those who dropped out and went to the Woodstock Festival and those who were sent
to the Vietnam War; but Russell instead found himself in war-torn Nigeria
teaching criminology, reading Graham Greene novels and hanging out playing
guitar with King Sunny Ade. He lived in...