Dan Russell
Dan Russell might just be the hardest-working achiever on the New England music scene that you’ve never heard of. While known as a musician and singer-songwriter in his own right, the bulk of his regional, national and international career has been behind the curtain as an artist manager, promoter, producer, creative collaborator and video/film music supervisor. In addition to his own musical projects and early-‘80s production, management and promotional activities with Boston-based singer-songwriter Andy Pratt, he’s worked in various roles with artists including U2, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Bruce Cockburn, Switchfoot, Sam Phillips, Robin Lane, Mark Heard, Vigilantes of Love, Rachel Taylor, Ramona Silver, John Fischer, Michael Been and The Call.
Russell began his journey as a singer and guitarist after graduating from Walpole (Massachusetts) High School in 1974 and enrolling at Barrington College in Rhode Island, when songwriting became his pastime and passion. “It was just a cathartic exercise. I’d get together with friends and we would share our songs,” he says. Over time, however, his own artistic development was supplanted by the various writing collaborations, productions and other projects that came his way. “I’d befriend and get close to artists and they’d say something like, ‘Hey, I just recorded for a label. Do you know how I can get a band?’ So, I’d push my stuff aside and work on their projects,” he says.
GRAMMY NOMINATION, SOULFEST, ARTIST MANAGEMENT, U2 CONNECTION
In 1990, after more than a decade working in artist management and concert promotion, Russell founded the independent label Fingerprint Records with singer-songwriters Mark Heard and Chuck Long; he handled business affairs and worked in the studio on several albums by Heard and Ramona Silver plus a pair from The Call. After Heard passed away in 1992, Russell produced the album Strong Hand of Love: A Tribute to Mark Heard, a collection of 17 covers of Heard’s songs by Russell, Kate Taylor, Phil Keaggy and others that earned a Grammy nomination in 1994 for Best Rock Gospel Album. Four years later, he founded Soulfest, a three-day, faith- and social justice-based music festival that continues to this day and draws some 25,000 attendees every August. Since the debut event in 1998 on New Hampshire’s Loon Mountain, it’s become New England’s premier Christian-rock festival and has presented artists as diverse as Grammy winning singer-songwriter Amy Grant and Grammy-nominated heavy metal quartet P.O.D; the 2024 event was held at Franklin County Fairgrounds in Greenfield, Massachusetts, where the 2025 festival will also take place.
In the 1990s and 2000s, Russell worked in several capacities with The Call and its lead singer Michael Been, which led to him managing Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, the band formed by Been’s son Robert. He’s been a close U2 confidant since first meeting the band in December 1980 (when they played their first gig in Boston, at the Paradise Rock Club) and accompanied the group on their Zoo TV and Achtung Baby tours in the early ‘90s. During that time, he also had a hand in the production and release of over 50 albums.
FEEL THE ECHOES, ECHOES
While Russell has recorded his own material from time to time over the years, his desire to focus on creating his own music led to the completion of his first full album in 2017, Feel the Echoes, which he released independently. He followed that in 2024 with the remixed LP Echoes, produced by Jesse Mark Russell and issued by Mi5/Universal Music Group. The title track rose into the top 25 of the National Rock Radio Airplay chart and Russell says that the songs on the album are expressions of his deepest experiences. “My ego won’t support a hoax,” he says. “If you’re only looking at what’s trending now and writing a song from that, it’s just exploitive and I’d be lying. Authenticity comes from the fact that it’s me, but you and I are not so far from each other. [The songs are] autobiographical and reflect a journey that did not start a minute ago.”
These days, musical jack-of-all trades Russell lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico and is more respected and in-demand than ever among his fellow artists and producers for his depth of expertise, insight and experience. Hopefully, he says, he’ll be able to sort through his usual pile of requests from “the business” and leave himself time for more writing and recording. With his passion as an artist having borne recent fruit, there’s certainly momentum for additional songs and experiences from his uniquely purposeful life’s journey.
(by Carter Alan)
Carter Alan is a former WBCN deejay now heard on WZLX-FM in Boston. He’s the author of five books including Radio Free Boston: The Rise and Fall of WBCN (University Press of New England, 2013).
