lang, Guy Clark, Joe Ely, The Sir Douglas Quintet, Jason Boland, Nanci Griffith, Katy Moffatt, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Sailcat, Iris Dement, Dave Alvin, and Suzy Bogguss.

He began his musical career in the early 1970s in Vancouver, British Columbia, playing strip bars along Skid Row, then later relocated to Texas and formed a band with singer-pianist Patricia Hardin.

Both Hardin & Russell albums (Ring of Bone and Wax Museum) received high critical acclaim, and the first was reviewed in Rolling Stone by Chet Flippo.

During this period Russell was also the winner of the first Woody Guthrie - William Oliver Award for songwriting, as well as the professional country category in the first American Song Festival.

Russell moved to New York City in 1980 and while working as a taxi driver in Queens, he met guitarist Andrew Hardin (no relation to Patricia).

"Gallo del Cielo" became one of Russell's most fabled songs and has been recorded by Ian Tyson, Joe Ely, Brian Burns, Jason Boland and the Stragglers, and Katie Lee.

Russell's storytelling approach was also prominent in songs such as "Haley's Comet", which was also recorded by co-writer Dave Alvin and Doug Sahm and The Texas Tornados.

Drawing on the music of Norway and Ireland in addition to American folk and country, The Man From God Knows Where is a song cycle tracing the journeys of Russell's ancestors from Europe to America and the struggles they encountered.

Recorded in Norway near the spot where his great-grandfather was born in 1847, the album features singers Iris DeMent, Dolores Keane, Dave Van Ronk, and Kari Bremnes, portraying (and telling the stories of) Russell's various ancestors.

Subtitled A Ballad for Gone America, the album features songs and spoken word pieces, many of the latter delivered by another friend of Bukowski, circus midget Little Jack Horton.

The sampled voices of Lenny Bruce and Edward Abbey are also heard on the album, which takes the form of a musical collage lamenting the passing of the America of Russell's childhood and the Beat Generation.

This was followed in 2007 by Wounded Heart of America, a tribute album of Tom Russell songs covered by other artists, including Johnny Cash, Doug Sahm, Joe Ely, Suzy Bogguss, Dave Alvin, Jerry Jeff Walker, and beat poet laureate Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

Rockbeat also re-issued the acclaimed Americana classic Tulare Dust: A Songwriters' Tribute To Merle Haggard which Russell co-produced with Dave Alvin, including a bonus disc taken from a live concert given by many of the artists involved with the project.

In April 2015 Russell released The Rose of Roscrae, a double-album on Frontera Records, a Western folk opera that completes the trilogy begun with The Man From God Knows Where and Hotwalker.

In 2016 Frontera Records released the second Tom Russell Anthology: Gunpowder Sunsets, including favorites from recent albums along with previously unreleased material.

In 2019, Russell released an album of new compositions, "October in the Railroad Earth," featuring Bill Kirchen on guitar and Eliza Gilkyson guesting on harmony vocals on two tracks.