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Oskaloosa, Iowa, United States
Charles Arthur Russell, Jr. (May 21, 1951 – April 4, 1992) was an American cellist, composer, singer, and disco artist. While he found the most success in dance music, Russell's career br . .
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Charles Arthur Russell, Jr. (May 21, 1951 – April 4, 1992) was an American cellist, composer, singer, and disco artist. While he found the most success in dance music, Russell's career bridged New York's downtown, rock, and dance music scenes; his collaborators ranged from Philip Glass to David Byrne to Nicky Siano. Relatively unknown during his lifetime, a series of reissues and compilations have raised his profile in the 2000s. Russell was born and raised in Oskaloosa, Iowa; his father was a former naval officer who eventually served as mayor of the town. As a child and adolescent, he studied the cello & piano and began to compose his own music. When he was 18 he moved to San Francisco, where he lived in a Buddhist commune and studied North Indian music at the Ali Akbar College of Music and Western composition part-time at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He met Allen Ginsberg, with whom he began to work, accompanying him on the cello as a soloist or in groups while Ginsberg sang or read his poetry.