Singer Allison Russell performs Friday at First Avenue in Minneapolis.

Allison Russell is a rainbow connector — from Brandi Carlile to Kermit the Frog

The Grammy-winning Americana star heads to Minneapolis because of Prince.

By Jon Bream Star Tribune

May 5, 2025 — 7:30am

For her first headline appearance in the Twin Cities, award-winning roots singer Allison Russell wants to perform at First Avenue. Because of Prince, of course. She'll have an altar onstage to him as well as other heroes like Tracy Chapman and Mavis Staples — "the giants whose shoulders we're now standing on."

When it comes to Prince, Russell and her all-women band, the Rainbow Coalition, are "obsessed. I don't know how many times we've watched 'Purple Rain' as a band," said the Canadian singer, who comes to First Ave on Friday. "To be able to headline there feels special and resonant and magical to me."

Russell will reach out to "our big sisters" — Prince alums Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman, who played on her recent sophomore album, "The Returner" — to try to arrange a "bucket list" private visit to Prince's Paisley Park while in the Twin Cities.

Russell has become a masterful connector. Brandi Carlile, Joni Mitchell and Hozier are among the stars with whom the clarinetist/banjoist/singer has collaborated.

Although the Montreal native was a member of Birds of Chicago (with her partner JT Nero) and Our Native Daughters (with Rhiannon Giddens), Russell has blossomed as a connector since releasing her outstanding debut solo album, "Outside Child," in 2021.

She won the Americana Music Award for album of the year for that recording, and this year she picked up a Grammy for best American roots performance for the song "Eve Was Black."

"It started as poem as an open letter from myself to my adopted father, the man who raised me, who was severely abusive and had been himself abused as a child, physically and ideologically," she said.

"It was a poem of reckoning and forgiveness. It was to remind anyone suffering from supremacy delusions that we're actually connected and family, whether we like it or not."

She sent the poem to the New Yorker magazine, which rejected it. When asked years later to compose something for the Nashville Ballet, she set the poem to music.

Russell, 43, has had a challenging life. She's been writing a memoir but she finds penning songs more therapeutic because "you have the solace of melody and the joy of collaboration with other artists. The memoir has been harrowing, I would say. You're alone and reliving some of the most painful years of my life.

"I wasn't lucky for the first 15 years, but since then everything has been making up for it."

Indeed, she has worked with so many of her heroes and others.

Fresh from a Broadway stint as Persephone in "Hadestown," Russell Zoomed in from Australia to talk about her various connections from Anaïs Mitchell to Annie Lennox, with whom she just released the single "Superlover."

Anaïs Mitchell

They met in 2008 when Mitchell opened for JT and the Clouds, led by Russell's partner JT Nero, in Santa Barbara, Calif.

"I was completely enchanted by her voice on 'Why We Build the Wall' and describing how she was working on a folk opera about the Orpheus and Eurydice myth," Russell recalled. "I had that feeling this song is going to outlive us all."

They became friends on the folk music circuit, sleeping on each other's floors, eventually nursing their babies, born months apart, together. Mitchell's folk opera, "Hadestown," landed on Broadway and last year, Russell got invited to play Persephone, a character about whom she'd written a song that's on "Outside Child."

"Never in a million years did I think I'd be part of that show and make my Broadway debut in the role of an archetypal goddess that has been resonant to me for my whole life," Russell said. "It was serendipitous."

Brandi Carlile

Russell met Carlile on an Americana music cruise in 2015. During the pandemic, Russell, not having Carlile's phone, DMed her via Instagram. Yes, Carlile would like to hear Russell's songs.

"Over Zoom, Brandi introduced me and got me signed to Concord [Music Group]," Russell recalled, "and lifted our family out of poverty during pandemic."

Joni Mitchell

Young Allison became fascinated with the clarinet while listening to her mom's record of Joni Mitchell's "For Free" on 1970's "Ladies of the Canyon." In 2022, Carlile invited Russell to accompany Mitchell on clarinet at a surprise appearance at the Newport Folk Festival and then again at Joni Jams at the Gorge in Washington state and the Hollywood Bowl.

Annie Lennox

At the rehearsals for the Joni Jam shows at the Gorge in 2023, Carlile said Mitchell wanted the clarinetist to sit close to her.

"Brandi said: 'And I'm going to put you next to Annie and Sarah,'" Russell remembered. "I assumed they were nurses' aides. About 10 minutes later out walks Annie Lennox and Sarah McLachlan."

Not only did Russell and Lennox stay in touch, they performed together on the Grammys and again with Mitchell at the Hollywood Bowl.

"I reached out to her about 'Superlover,'" Russell said. "I feel privileged that she returned her voice to record after I think eight years since she put out a recording."

Hozier

Russell met the hitmaking Irish singer/songwriter at the 2019 Newport Folk Festival when she was performing with Our Native Daughters. Hozier and Staples invited the women to join them onstage for a finale of "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize."

The four members of Our Native Daughters had brought their six young children on tour. On this very hot day, Hozier, the Newport headliner, gave up his air-conditioned trailer to the "melting down" children so their moms could rehearse for the finale.

"That's when I knew Hozier was a kindred spirit." Russell said. "And Mavis came and hugged our babies."

Hozier later extended three invitations to Russell: to join him later to write material for a Staples album (she calls me "Baby Russell" and him "Hozy"), sing on "Wildflower and Barley" on his 2023 album and open his 2024 North American tour.

Wendy & Lisa

Joe Henry, whom Russell met through Giddens, produced an album for Birds of Chicago in 2015. Years later, he introduced Russell to Lisa Coleman and some demos were sent to the former Prince keyboardist.

"I'll never forget I was on the radio [doing an interview] and I was getting texts from JT and 'Lisa Coleman is texting me emojis and I'm trying to be cool,'" Russell said. "She liked the demos and suggested that Wendy join, as well."

Russell went to Wendy & Lisa's Hollywood recording studio, which is at the complex formerly known as A&M (Records) Studios.

"It's where Joni recorded all of her records pretty much. Carole King did 'Tapestry' there. They did 'We Are the World' there. Now it's Henson Studios, so you get greeted by Kermit the Frog in a top hat as you go through the arches to get into it. It's absolutely joyful."

And it's full circle for Russell. It's because of Kermit the Frog that she wanted to play the banjo. It was her Rainbow Connection before she formed her Rainbow Coalition.