Russell was born in 1979 in Fort Worth, Texas to a Christian family, moving around frequently as a military brat as his father was in the US Navy.

[1] After graduating from Holy Names University, he began a career as a bass opera singer in San Francisco and New York.

He encountered the Yiddish song "Dem Milners Trern" ("The Miller's Tears") while watching the film A Serious Man, which led to him researching the work of singer Sidor Belarsky and early 20th century Jewish music.

[6][3] In January 2012, Russell was invited to perform at the Sholem Aleichem Cultural Center in the Bronx, New York.

There, he met Yiddish vaudevillian Shane Baker, who invited him to be a guest performer at the Manhattan JCC, jumpstarting his career.

[4] He has had performances in Yiddish both in the US and internationally, including in Toronto, Montreal, Mexico City, Berlin, Warsaw, Krakow, Gdansk, Symphony Space in New York City, the Kennedy Center in Washington DC and Limmud Fests across the United States and Europe.