Alma Russ

“The sound of Alma Russ is less an attempt at impersonation, and more an amalgam of many great singers of country and roots interwoven into an original approach…”- Trigger, Saving Country Music. 

Alma lives in Mill Spring, NC, when she’s not on the road. Her sound is a mix of country gold, Appalachian tradition, and Americana soul. 

As a child, she fell in love with classic country when she saw The Country Bear Jamboree at Disney World. She became interested in Appalachian culture and music, started learning historic Scotch-Irish murder ballads, and took up fiddle at 12. Banjo and guitar followed, and then she made friends with a hobo who taught her to write songs, so that's what she keeps doing. Music has taken her lots of places, from the hometown bars, to church, to the highways, and she’s been bumming around the country playing her songs since she was 19. She spent a while performing as an entertainer on the passenger train in Bryson City, NC, and once she wound up getting 3 yeses from ABC's American Idol Judges on Season 1 and being sent to Hollywood, CA. She also recorded a critically acclaimed album in an abandoned church in the West Texas desert.

 Her influences include John Prine, Gillian Welch, Patty Griffin, Nanci Griffith, Townes Van Zandt, Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams, Dolly Parton, among others.