Mary Jones Russell
Mary Jones Russell
Born Mary Ann Jones in Nacogdoches, Texas in the great year of 1955, Mary starting singing at a very early age. She was raised by her Daddy (Buck) and brother and sisters. Doris, her mother, died when she was 3 years old so she never had the influence of a mother. The next best thing was her grandmother, Addie, that was next door and her best friend in hard times.
Mary always loved to sing, children’s songs as soon as she could speak, maybe before. But it really started at school, where maybe she wasn’t the best student but the music teacher would say to the class to “listen to Mary” . Mary’s brother JR joined the Navy right after high school and came back on leave with a guitar. That was it! He taught her a few chords and left her with an old acoustic guitar that he bought for her. She played until her fingers would bleed, and started writing her own songs at the age of 14. She performed at local fairs and at school functions until she was 17. At a local hamburger joint on the Stephen F Austin University campus, she saw an ad for a female vocalist for a college band. Nacogdoches was a dry county besides she was underage, but auditioned anyway. She sat on the back of a pickup and sang her own song and was hired on the spot. Nobody told the “private club” owner how old she was and they didn’t ask. That was the beginning. She did covers mostly at the time, Janis Joplin, Tracey Nelson, Sly and the Family Stone (the times stuff). She left with the band from Nacogdoches to the gulf coast of Texas. Not being quite 18, she and a certain band member decided to change her name, as she left without the blessing of her father. So Mary Jones became Angela Jones for almost 3 years. It didn’t work, her cousin came into the club where she was performing and the whole anonymous thing was a done deal.
The band eventually parted and Mary moved on to play solo and lounge (ouch) stuff. She moved to Corpus Christi where she joined a band and met Freddy Fender. The owner of the club was to say the least questionable and offered Mary the deal of a lifetime. He owns 90% of her and tells her everything to wear, do and you get the picture. He offered Freddy the same deal. Months later after Mary left and was paying her dues at a Holiday in club in Huntsville, Texas she hears the song Freddy had been rehearsing with the band for his happy hour gig. “Before The Last Teardrop Falls” starting playing on the radio as she drove down Interstate 45 to Huntsville from Houston and she knew that the club owner wasn‘t full of shit. Later she found out the deal wasn’t so sweet for Freddy and felt better about her decision. She continued to play, write and do mostly solo gigs even after she married (thus the Russell name) and until about a month until she delivered her first daughter (named Addie after her grandmother, of course).
She did a stint of day jobs, but music always found it’s way back. At 26, she was playing with Jimmy Don Smith from Houston and working on the same venues as Los Lobos, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Robert Cray, Lee Roy Parnell and BB King. But her favorite highlight was opening for Albert Collins. Albert King had cancelled for a big blues duke out and nobody was expecting this little white girl from East Texas to fill in but she got “WoW” reviews from Bob Claypool from the Houston Chronicle and most importantly from Albert himself.
She took another break from music and focused on her family, but still played small venues.
In 1989, she moved to Colorado and not in the music business at the time, it didn’t take long for it to find her once again. She made her first CD “Retreat” in 1993 with the likes of guest musicians, Nelson Rangel, BBQ Bob, Tim O’Brian and Lance Bendikson. Her second CD “It’s Just Life” is a tribute to her roots in East Texas and her granddaughter, Isabella (who is a miracle child, but that’s another story). This CD is all original songs by Mary helped out by Bob Story, Eric Leonard, Rob Candler and Becky Martinek.
Look for Mary in the Denver/Boulder area where music will always be part of who she is.