Allison Russell Affirms the Power of Community During Trying Times at Montreal's Folk Alliance International

For Allison Russell, the 37th Folk Alliance International conference was a homecoming.

The annual conference, which takes place in a different city each year, took over Montreal's downtown Sheraton Centre from February 19 to 23.

The Nashville-based singer-songwriter gave the conference's keynote presentation, in conversation with NPR's Ann Powers — which, for the Grammy-winning singer, meant returning to her hometown of Montreal. At a conference themed around the idea of illumination, Russell was a beacon of light.

Russell opened the keynote by sharing that as a teen, she would sleep in the pews of a cathedral less than a kilometre away from the conference centre she was in that day. Her high school was just down the road, too.

"We bring with us every version of ourselves," Russell said, "all the ages of myself are so present in this town."

Russell's 2021 solo debut album, Outside Child, tells the story of her survival through an abusive childhood in Montreal. Speaking at the FAI, Russell emphasized Montreal's public arts as a salve for her during those years.

But Montreal wasn't the only home Russell returned to at FAI: the conference itself has been a constant for her, across more than two decades of professional music.

Speaking with Billboard Canada after the keynote, Russell recalled that her first FAI conference was in 2001 in Vancouver. She was roadie-ing for Canadian folk group The Be Good Tanyas, who were having a breakout year.

"I was still in the closet as a songwriter," she remembered.

That conference was where she would meet JT Nero — her partner in life, child-rearing and music-making.

24 years later, Russell is one of Canada's most celebrated contemporary songwriters. She has released two acclaimed solo albums — 2021's Outside Child and 2023's The Returner — as well as collaborating with Joni Mitchell, touring with Hozier, and making her recent Broadway debut as Persephone in the musical Hadestown. Last year, she won her first Grammy and was named Breakthrough Artist of the Year at Billboard Canada Women in Music.

The crowd was thrilled to see her, welcoming her with an immediate standing ovation. How did it feel to return to FAI as the keynote, with all of that under her belt?

"I remember sitting in the audience and crying listening to Mavis Staples, who was the keynote a couple of years ago, in conversation with Ann Powers, and just sitting there and sobbing and laughing and smiling," she shared. "So to get to be part of it on that side of things, it’s quite a deep honour."

Meeting The Moment

Russell was still coming down from those Hadestown performances — 15 weeks, 8 shows a week, and she didn't miss a day — when she landed in Montreal.

She told the crowd her brain was all over the map. But her keynote was a beautiful and lucid talk that saw her quoting Joan Baez off the cusp, chronicling the lineage of mitochondrial Eve and analyzing Greek myths, as she wove a larger story about community and joy in heady times.

Russell's second album, The Returner, is a genre-bending journey through joyful survival, rooted in knowing and facing all the versions of oneself. At FAI, she spoke about the danger that comes from living in denial of trauma and hardship on a micro and macro level.

"We are going through a phase, of unfortunately a fascist resurfacing, rooted in fear, rooted in denialism, rooted in trying to hide the past or re-write it instead of simply facing it," she said in her keynote. "Nothing can be changed unless it's faced."

Russell made The Returner with her queer, female-led group The Rainbow Collective, and is active in advocating for LGBTQ+ rights in Tennessee, organizing the Love Rising benefit concert in 2023 amidst a wave of legislation targeting queer communities.

Now, that legislation is coming from the federal level. She linked the current American administration to her recent performances in Hadestown, a musical about an authoritarian leader who builds a wall to keep newcomers out.

Viewers have asked if it was written directly about the 47th President, but composer Anais Mitchell wrote it over 15 years ago. There's a reason for the coincidence, Russell explained.

"These fearful demagogues who root their hoarding of power in fear, in othering, in scapegoating," she said, "they are not originals. They are following a very very boring and terrible playbook."

Russell wasn't the only person at the conference to speak with political urgency. The FAI held panels on what it means to create art amidst authoritarian regimes; on the state of diversity, equity and inclusion policies; and the significance of feminist storytelling.

As a first-time attendee, the FAI felt to me more explicitly politically engaged than most international music conferences, which tend to prioritize opportunity over collectivity. I asked Russell what makes the folk industry so willing, or capable, of speaking to the political landscape.

She quoted Crys Matthews, who was named Artist of the Year at the previous day's International Folk Music Awards. "We just had a beautiful lunch with Crys and her fiancé Heather Mae, and she said something that really resonated: 'well, it would be pretty terrible if music whose very name means the people wanted to avoid talking about issues that affect the people,'" Russell recited. "I think that’s at the heart of it."

Building Community And Chosen Family

At the same time as Russell spoke frankly about the targeting of marginalized communities, she emphasized just how much those communities protect and inspire each other.

"I would be dead if it wasn't for my chosen family," Russell said.

She recalled facing barriers in the industry — being told by an industry member that they already had a Black woman with a guitar, so they wouldn't know how to market her — and spoke about her peers who made the difference.

"Brandi Carlile is the reason anyone heard Outside Child," Russell said.

Carlile championed the record, sending it to Fantasy Records and urging them to listen to it. Russell shared that up until that point, her and her family were subsistence touring. "We were working poor."

She told other stories, too, that exemplified the spirit of community Russell has fostered in her musical life: spending lockdown at Rhiannon Giddens' home with her partner, her ex-girlfriend, her daughter and her chosen sister Yola; or programming a Black, queer-led headlining set at the 2021 Newport Festival. "I was the first Black woman to do so," she said.

Titled Once and Future Sounds, and channelling folk great Odetta — who, Powers noted, never got to program her own stage — the lineup included Chaka Khan, Daisha the Rap Girl, Joy Oladokun, Monique of SistaStrings, Yola and many more.

More recently, Russell performed at Martin Scorsese's Life Is a Carnival musical tribute to Robbie Robertson. She brought along Julian Taylor and Logan Staats — noting that before she invited them, there were no Indigenous musicians slated to play. At her keynote, she wore a pair of earrings made for her by Staats' partner.

That's how Allison Russell operates: every stage is a chance to be in community, rather than a solo spotlight.

That ethos pulsed through FAI as a whole. The conference is as much a chance for folk musicians to meet and build relationships as it is a showcasing event.

The conference's famous late-night, private showcases, cultivate a party atmosphere, where sound spills out of hotel rooms as performers lead sing alongs and attendees follow the music to their next discovery. On Saturday night, I hopped from room to room, hearing the husky tones of Australia's Claire Anne Taylor; the fiddle-led jigs of Mi'kmaq musician Morgan Toney; the gentle songwriting of Ron Sexsmith; and the bustling blues of Lisa LeBlanc.

Folk music is, at its core, about people coming together. There is a joy inherent in that which cannot be extinguished by political repression.

Russell has a third solo album in the works, with singles coming soon. Titled In The Hour of Chaos, Russell says it's an album for her community, inspired by mutual aid during tough times. She's been in the studio with Nero and her Returner collaborators, having a blast working on new material.

"It's my community that have been uplifting and upholding me," she says, "I hopefully do the same for them."