Allison Russell: Tiny Desk Concert

VPM | By Ann Powers

Published September 14, 2022 at 9:00 AM EDT

Updated February 5, 2024

“I am grateful and I am proud for this circle of goddesses,” said Allison Russell during her joyful, rousing Tiny Desk set, reaching toward the six women surrounding her. Russell has cultivated this band’s harmoniousness in the year she’s been touring in support of her astounding, unclassifiable album Outside Child, which tells the singer’s life story, from her childhood escaping abuse through an itinerant adolescence and young adulthood anchored, finally, by the love and community she’s found as a feminist and a music-maker. This group — three string players, two guitarists, a drummer and Russell on her banjo and clarinet — embodies healing community, and its interplay and gospelized group vocals turbo-charged every song.

Russell, who burned a little palo santo wood and placed portraits of Prince and Joni Mitchell nearby as talismans before performing, began her set by invoking the ancestors with “Quasheba.” She continued with the incantatory “4th Day Prayer,” a spell cast to undo the oppression of childhood trauma. The intense interplay of cellists Larissa Maestro and Monique Ross and violinist Chauntee Ross undergirded the propulsive arrangement. The blues-rooted “Nightflyer” followed; drummer Megan Coleman’s green satin angel-wing sleeves shimmered as she marked a beat that guitarists Joy Clark and Mandy Fer intensified. Then came “You’re Not Alone,” a song Russell originally wrote as part of the Americana supergroup Our Native Daughters, just rereleased as a duet with Brandi Carlile. “La musique nous réunit / Une famille,” Russell sang in Québécois French. “A family,” she repeated. That’s what her music makes.

SET LIST

“Quasheba”

“4th Day Prayer”

“Nightflyer”

“You’re Not Alone”

MUSICIANS

Allison Russell: lead vocals, banjo, clarinet

Monique Ross: cello, vocals

Chauntee Ross: violin, vocals

Larissa Maestro: cello, vocals

Mandy Fer: electric guitar, vocals

Joy Clark: acoustic guitar, vocals

Megan Coleman: drums

TINY DESK TEAM

Producer/Series Creator: Bob Boilen

Audio Engineer: Josh Rogosin

Director: Kara Frame

Series Producer: Bobby Carter

Editor: Joshua Bryant

Videographers: Kara Frame, Michael Zamora, Joshua Bryant

Audio Assistant: Neil Tevault

Production Assistants: Joby Tanseco, Jill Britton

Tiny Desk Team: Suraya Mohamed, Marissa Lorusso, Hazel Cills, Ashley Pointer, Maia Stern

VP, Visuals and Music: Keith Jenkins

Senior VP, Programming: Anya Grundmann

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Ann Powers

Ann Powers is NPR Music's critic and correspondent. She writes for NPR.org and she can be heard on NPR's newsmagazines and music podcasts.

One of the nation's most notable music critics, Powers has been writing for NPR Music since April 2011.

Powers served as chief pop music critic at the Los Angeles Times from 2006 until she joined NPR. Prior to the Los Angeles Times, she was senior critic at Blender and senior curator at Experience Music Project. From 1997 to 2001 Powers was a pop critic at The New York Times and before that worked as a senior editor at the Village Voice. Powers began her career working as an editor and columnist at San Francisco Weekly.

Her writing extends beyond the web, magazines and newspapers. Powers co-wrote Tori Amos: Piece By Piece, with Amos, which was published in 2005. In 1999, Power's book Weird Like Us: My Bohemian America was published. She was the editor, with Evelyn McDonnell, of the 1995 book Rock She Wrote: Women Write About Rock, Rap, and Pop and the editor of Best Music Writing 2010.

After earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in creative writing from San Francisco State University, Powers went on to receive a Master of Arts degree in English from the University of California.

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