The unassuming packaging makes this nugget look as though it was ordered from the Roebuck catalog some 100 years ago. "Say, we could really use some Luther Russell," you say, and gather together with excitement when the box in the plain brown wrapper finally arrives. Russell is the neighbor who sits and smokes on the porch, strumming sweet despairing songs on his guitar; something you forgot you had lost comes jangled loose from your memory. Stories of people you never met sound like the stories from your own life: "John Hardy," "Long Black Cloud," "Gamblers Blues," "Framed On 8th Street," "To Be Blue," "I'm A Stranger." The sound of a passing train slips through Russell's raspy voice; the dust welled up inside the organ makes it breathe a little heavier and the evening sun remains frozen just an hour below the curves of the hills. Someone whispers abpout the spirit of Neil Yong some twenty years hence.....the others nod in silent contemplation. Sepia-toned photos of honest and worn faces bring to mind the color of whiskey. All sounds recorded by Luther Russell in a bedroom somewhere in Portland. Get two, because you'll wear the first one out. -C. Beeson