Burial arrangements have been announced for Jim Russell, the New Orleans record impresario who passed away July 20, 2014, at age 94. At 10 a.m. Friday, August 29, Russell will be laid to rest at the Southeast Louisiana Veterans Cemetery in Slidell.
Russell James Baumbach, also known as Jim Russell "The Music Man," was born Sept. 11, 1919, in Pittsburgh, Pa. After returning home from World War II, he got into the music business as a disc jockey and concert promoter – but, as he told a camera crew from the MTV program "The Cutting Edge" in the 1980's, he was fired for playing rhythm and blues records by black artists, what was then known as "race music," on the air. It was soon after that, in Akron, Ohio, that he met another young DJ named Alan Freed ("Do you think this'll catch on?" Russell recalled Freed asking him of rock n'roll, in the "Cutting Edge" interview).
Freed, of course, is widely acknowledged to have coined the term rock n'roll on his late-night radio shows and at concerts like the 1952 Moondog Coronation Ball in Cleveland, OH, which is considered the first rock n'roll concert. Russell and Freed joined forces, promoting record hops and concerts in Ohio and then in New York City, until, Russell has recalled in interviews, he got spooked by a heavy organized-crime presence in the New York music-business scene, and decamped to New Orleans, where he had befriended the owner of radio station WTIX.
There, with his sharp business acumen and ear for new sounds, he quickly developed relationships with New Orleans radio personalities like Jack the Cat and Poppa Stoppa, and nightclub owners like Frank Paina, proprietor of the legendary Dew Drop Inn. With the power of radio, fast talk and shoe leather, he promoted dozens of New Orleans rock n'roll and rhythm and blues artists until the British Invasion cut into the profitability of those homegrown sounds.
In 1968, with the large collection of records he'd amassed after years of working with disc jockeys and distributors, he opened Jim Russell's Rare Records on Magazine Street, which is still open today. In 2004, he was honored with Offbeat magazine's Lifetime Achievement in Music Business award. Bunny Matthews, the prominent New Orleans cartoonist and then-editor of Offbeat wrote an appreciation of Russell, who had been a mentor to him:
"I began working at his Magazine Street record shop in 1970, when I was a teenage college drop-out," Matthews wrote.
"The years I spent at Jim Russell's were as close as I ever got to a "higher" education. Under his tutelage, I learned everything: why New Orleans is the fount of all music; who the great New Orleans musicians were (most of them were our customers); how to get from Uptown to the St. Bernard Projects and back in 15 minutes without losing (or getting robbed of) thousands of dollars in cash; what sort of people you can trust (very few); and the ability to tell a story with sufficient drama and poetic license."
Mr. Russell remained sharp-witted and opinionated until the very end of his life. In 2010, at 91, he was scheduled to be interviewed live at the Ponderosa Stomp festival's third annual music history conference. Instead, the record man gave a lengthy, articulate dissertation on the history of American music, his own sweeping career and its multiple points of intersection with the musical zeitgeist, and his firm points of view on why it had gone the way it had. His interlocutor was allowed perhaps fifteen words, over the course of an hour's talk. A videotape of the event is preserved, now, in the archives of the Rock n'Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland; the institution is located there, in part, because of Russell's onetime compatriot Alan Freed.
Russell had a stroke shortly after that appearance, but recovered fully, his daughter-in-law said. After suffering a second in early July, though, her father-in-law didn't rebound, and passed away the same month. Burial was delayed, Mrs. Baumbach said, while the family ascertained Mr. Russell's final wishes.
Jim Russell was preceded in death by his wife Beulah "Bee" Baumbach. He is survived by his two daughters and two sons and their families.
Russell James Baumbach, also known as Jim Russell "The Music Man," was born Sept. 11, 1919, in Pittsburgh, Pa. After returning home from World War II, he got into the music business as a disc jockey and concert promoter – but, as he told a camera crew from the MTV program "The Cutting Edge" in the 1980's, he was fired for playing rhythm and blues records by black artists, what was then known as "race music," on the air. It was soon after that, in Akron, Ohio, that he met another young DJ named Alan Freed ("Do you think this'll catch on?" Russell recalled Freed asking him of rock n'roll, in the "Cutting Edge" interview).
Freed, of course, is widely acknowledged to have coined the term rock n'roll on his late-night radio shows and at concerts like the 1952 Moondog Coronation Ball in Cleveland, OH, which is considered the first rock n'roll concert. Russell and Freed joined forces, promoting record hops and concerts in Ohio and then in New York City, until, Russell has recalled in interviews, he got spooked by a heavy organized-crime presence in the New York music-business scene, and decamped to New Orleans, where he had befriended the owner of radio station WTIX.
There, with his sharp business acumen and ear for new sounds, he quickly developed relationships with New Orleans radio personalities like Jack the Cat and Poppa Stoppa, and nightclub owners like Frank Paina, proprietor of the legendary Dew Drop Inn. With the power of radio, fast talk and shoe leather, he promoted dozens of New Orleans rock n'roll and rhythm and blues artists until the British Invasion cut into the profitability of those homegrown sounds.
In 1968, with the large collection of records he'd amassed after years of working with disc jockeys and distributors, he opened Jim Russell's Rare Records on Magazine Street, which is still open today. In 2004, he was honored with Offbeat magazine's Lifetime Achievement in Music Business award. Bunny Matthews, the prominent New Orleans cartoonist and then-editor of Offbeat wrote an appreciation of Russell, who had been a mentor to him:
"I began working at his Magazine Street record shop in 1970, when I was a teenage college drop-out," Matthews wrote.
"The years I spent at Jim Russell's were as close as I ever got to a "higher" education. Under his tutelage, I learned everything: why New Orleans is the fount of all music; who the great New Orleans musicians were (most of them were our customers); how to get from Uptown to the St. Bernard Projects and back in 15 minutes without losing (or getting robbed of) thousands of dollars in cash; what sort of people you can trust (very few); and the ability to tell a story with sufficient drama and poetic license."
Mr. Russell remained sharp-witted and opinionated until the very end of his life. In 2010, at 91, he was scheduled to be interviewed live at the Ponderosa Stomp festival's third annual music history conference. Instead, the record man gave a lengthy, articulate dissertation on the history of American music, his own sweeping career and its multiple points of intersection with the musical zeitgeist, and his firm points of view on why it had gone the way it had. His interlocutor was allowed perhaps fifteen words, over the course of an hour's talk. A videotape of the event is preserved, now, in the archives of the Rock n'Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland; the institution is located there, in part, because of Russell's onetime compatriot Alan Freed.
Russell had a stroke shortly after that appearance, but recovered fully, his daughter-in-law said. After suffering a second in early July, though, her father-in-law didn't rebound, and passed away the same month. Burial was delayed, Mrs. Baumbach said, while the family ascertained Mr. Russell's final wishes.
Jim Russell was preceded in death by his wife Beulah "Bee" Baumbach. He is survived by his two daughters and two sons and their families.
Burial arrangements have been announced for Jim Russell, the New Orleans record impresario who passed away July 20, 2014, at age 94. At 10 a.m. Friday, August 29, Russell will be laid to rest at the Southeast Louisiana Veterans Cemetery in Slidell.
Russell James Baumbach, also known as Jim Russell "The Music Man," was born Sept. 11, 1919, in Pittsburgh, Pa. After returning home from World War II, he got into the music business as a disc jockey and concert promoter – but, as he told a camera crew from the MTV program "The Cutting Edge" in the 1980's, he was fired for playing rhythm and blues records by black artists, what was then known as "race music," on the air. It was soon after that, in Akron, Ohio, that he met another young DJ named Alan Freed ("Do you think this'll catch on?" Russell recalled Freed asking him of rock n'roll, in the "Cutting Edge" interview).
Freed, of course, is widely acknowledged to have coined the term rock n'roll on his late-night radio shows and at concerts like the 1952 Moondog Coronation Ball in Cleveland, OH, which is considered the first rock n'roll concert. Russell and Freed joined forces, promoting record hops and concerts in Ohio and then in New York City, until, Russell has recalled in interviews, he got spooked by a heavy organized-crime presence in the New York music-business scene, and decamped to New Orleans, where he had befriended the owner of radio station WTIX.
There, with his sharp business acumen and ear for new sounds, he quickly developed relationships with New Orleans radio personalities like Jack the Cat and Poppa Stoppa, and nightclub owners like Frank Paina, proprietor of the legendary Dew Drop Inn. With the power of radio, fast talk and shoe leather, he promoted dozens of New Orleans rock n'roll and rhythm and blues artists until the British Invasion cut into the profitability of those homegrown sounds.
In 1968, with the large collection of records he'd amassed after years of working with disc jockeys and distributors, he opened Jim Russell's Rare Records on Magazine Street, which is still open today. In 2004, he was honored with Offbeat magazine's Lifetime Achievement in Music Business award. Bunny Matthews, the prominent New Orleans cartoonist and then-editor of Offbeat wrote an appreciation of Russell, who had been a mentor to him:
"I began working at his Magazine Street record shop in 1970, when I was a teenage college drop-out," Matthews wrote.
"The years I spent at Jim Russell's were as close as I ever got to a "higher" education. Under his tutelage, I learned everything: why New Orleans is the fount of all music; who the great New Orleans musicians were (most of them were our customers); how to get from Uptown to the St. Bernard Projects and back in 15 minutes without losing (or getting robbed of) thousands of dollars in cash; what sort of people you can trust (very few); and the ability to tell a story with sufficient drama and poetic license."
Mr. Russell remained sharp-witted and opinionated until the very end of his life. In 2010, at 91, he was scheduled to be interviewed live at the Ponderosa Stomp festival's third annual music history conference. Instead, the record man gave a lengthy, articulate dissertation on the history of American music, his own sweeping career and its multiple points of intersection with the musical zeitgeist, and his firm points of view on why it had gone the way it had. His interlocutor was allowed perhaps fifteen words, over the course of an hour's talk. A videotape of the event is preserved, now, in the archives of the Rock n'Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland; the institution is located there, in part, because of Russell's onetime compatriot Alan Freed.
Russell had a stroke shortly after that appearance, but recovered fully, his daughter-in-law said. After suffering a second in early July, though, her father-in-law didn't rebound, and passed away the same month. Burial was delayed, Mrs. Baumbach said, while the family ascertained Mr. Russell's final wishes.
Jim Russell was preceded in death by his wife Beulah "Bee" Baumbach. He is survived by his two daughters and two sons and their families.
Russell James Baumbach, also known as Jim Russell "The Music Man," was born Sept. 11, 1919, in Pittsburgh, Pa. After returning home from World War II, he got into the music business as a disc jockey and concert promoter – but, as he told a camera crew from the MTV program "The Cutting Edge" in the 1980's, he was fired for playing rhythm and blues records by black artists, what was then known as "race music," on the air. It was soon after that, in Akron, Ohio, that he met another young DJ named Alan Freed ("Do you think this'll catch on?" Russell recalled Freed asking him of rock n'roll, in the "Cutting Edge" interview).
Freed, of course, is widely acknowledged to have coined the term rock n'roll on his late-night radio shows and at concerts like the 1952 Moondog Coronation Ball in Cleveland, OH, which is considered the first rock n'roll concert. Russell and Freed joined forces, promoting record hops and concerts in Ohio and then in New York City, until, Russell has recalled in interviews, he got spooked by a heavy organized-crime presence in the New York music-business scene, and decamped to New Orleans, where he had befriended the owner of radio station WTIX.
There, with his sharp business acumen and ear for new sounds, he quickly developed relationships with New Orleans radio personalities like Jack the Cat and Poppa Stoppa, and nightclub owners like Frank Paina, proprietor of the legendary Dew Drop Inn. With the power of radio, fast talk and shoe leather, he promoted dozens of New Orleans rock n'roll and rhythm and blues artists until the British Invasion cut into the profitability of those homegrown sounds.
In 1968, with the large collection of records he'd amassed after years of working with disc jockeys and distributors, he opened Jim Russell's Rare Records on Magazine Street, which is still open today. In 2004, he was honored with Offbeat magazine's Lifetime Achievement in Music Business award. Bunny Matthews, the prominent New Orleans cartoonist and then-editor of Offbeat wrote an appreciation of Russell, who had been a mentor to him:
"I began working at his Magazine Street record shop in 1970, when I was a teenage college drop-out," Matthews wrote.
"The years I spent at Jim Russell's were as close as I ever got to a "higher" education. Under his tutelage, I learned everything: why New Orleans is the fount of all music; who the great New Orleans musicians were (most of them were our customers); how to get from Uptown to the St. Bernard Projects and back in 15 minutes without losing (or getting robbed of) thousands of dollars in cash; what sort of people you can trust (very few); and the ability to tell a story with sufficient drama and poetic license."
Mr. Russell remained sharp-witted and opinionated until the very end of his life. In 2010, at 91, he was scheduled to be interviewed live at the Ponderosa Stomp festival's third annual music history conference. Instead, the record man gave a lengthy, articulate dissertation on the history of American music, his own sweeping career and its multiple points of intersection with the musical zeitgeist, and his firm points of view on why it had gone the way it had. His interlocutor was allowed perhaps fifteen words, over the course of an hour's talk. A videotape of the event is preserved, now, in the archives of the Rock n'Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland; the institution is located there, in part, because of Russell's onetime compatriot Alan Freed.
Russell had a stroke shortly after that appearance, but recovered fully, his daughter-in-law said. After suffering a second in early July, though, her father-in-law didn't rebound, and passed away the same month. Burial was delayed, Mrs. Baumbach said, while the family ascertained Mr. Russell's final wishes.
Jim Russell was preceded in death by his wife Beulah "Bee" Baumbach. He is survived by his two daughters and two sons and their families.
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