Recorded in 1988 direct to cassette.  I'd forgotten I used to play that fast.

Barrel o' Banshees

midnight in the sunroom sessions, 5/20/14 - originally written and recorded March 1981

Solitary

Fact: the city of Macon, Georgia was originally laid out on a grid patterned on that of the ancient city of Babylon, until (as my blues mentor Steve Belew pithily put it) "they [fouled] it up by running Cotton Avenue diagonally."  

Last Exit To Babylon

Sometimes you have to honestly admit that ruin and sorrow really aren't things to celebrate or aspire to.

Sparks2024

Nothing in this world comes close to the sure knowledge that you love and are loved.

Nothing You Could Do

Morning

Was someone just not that important, after all, or do we just tell ourselves that?

Could Have Been Anyone

Written many years ago, when I wanted to be a Richard Thompson clone, this is about the moment you realize "it's not you, it's me" is only the start of the problem. 

Falling Out Of Love

sunroom sessions 2013 recording of a 1991 song written for my one true love, who all these years later is still the one ...

Still Believe

A foretaste of my next album coming later this year - Palisades, Perfected, is a collection of guitar soli that re-envisions the 1991 limited release recordings originally titled Friday Afternoon In Rusty's Living Room.   Best known as The Palisades within the small circle of listeners as a nod to the 1905 apartment house where they were recorded, the core of the collection included my 1989-91 repertoire in D-modal and open G tunings.  This year's album will include fresh takes on both the established pieces and the rough sketches recorded that day with later creations that expand and extend the theme.

The Breakwater

The self-described black sheep of a family of classically-trained musicians, Russ Fitzgerald has used songwriting to make sense of life since 1978.  His Macon, Georgia cult roots-rock band The Deadbeats was a key act in the mid-1980s Central Georgia music scene.  At the time of his solo acoustic debut in 1989, he was described in The Macon Telegraph as "a guitar nut [who] leans toward rockabilly, blues, brilliant folk rock [with] a distinct love of the music of Richard Thompson and The Blasters."  In the years since, he has absorbed a dizzying array of musical influences and made them his own while playing venues including dive bars, coffee shops, bookstores, live-streamed guitar pulls, festivals and songwriter showcases.
When asked to describe his music, he said, “I’ve been grappling for decades with that question.  I think of it as ‘Bare-Knuckle Acoustic Trans-Atlantic Americana,’ but really it’s all about trying to write songs that move people, and preferably with a song that you can’t pin down which decade it comes from.”