The outlines of the life of the composer, instrumentalist, and vocalist Arthur Russell are easy enough to sketch. Born in Oskaloosa, Iowa, in 1951, Russell grew up in the Midwest when the United States was at its most Middle American. The safeness of the environment persuaded him to run away from home and settle first in Iowa City—the nearest recognizably alternative location—and then San Francisco, where he hovered on the fringes of the countercultural movement by joining a Buddhist commune as well as studying simultaneously at the San Francisco Conservatory and the Ali Akbar College of Music. In 1973 Russell decided to move to New York to try and make it as a working composer and cellist, and after enrolling at the Manhattan School of Music he segued into the downtown music scene, where he worked while living in the East Village until he died of complications from AIDS in 1992.
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