Early life and career[edit]
Russell was born in Austin, Texas, on November 1, 1948. The sixth in a family of nine, Calvin Russell spent his first five years virtually behind the counter at Sho Nuff Café, where his father Red cooked and his mother Daisy was a waitress. At twelve, Calvin took up guitar and joined his first group, The Cavemen. At fifteen, he ran away to San Francisco. He survived on the road thanks to odd jobs and found himself imprisoned several times for petty teenage offenses. Disillusioned with the American model of financial and social success, he marginalized himself and sold cannabis in order to subsist. Arrested several times, he spent ten years behind bars. On leaving one of his stays in prison, he embarked on a journey through the Great South and crossed the Rio Grande to Piedras Negras and El Paso. This is where he really started to write songs and sing from town to town. He lived as a vagrant, but was caught by the Mexican authorities in the winter of 1985 with American weed in his pockets. Indicted for fraudulent importation of narcotics, he spent a year and a half in the jails of the Mexican government. When he returned to Austin in 1986, he worked as a plumber, but continued to hang out in an alcohol and drug environment. He rubbed shoulders with many musicians, including the legendary Townes Van Zandt, Willie Nelson, and Leon Russell.
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