"I DO consider myself a Portlander!"

It's been a few years since Luther Russell - rootsy troubadour, former Freewheeler, beloved producer (Fernando, Richmond Fontaine) - left our fair city, but he hasn't forgotten about us. "I come back, I still have all these friends that I still enjoy playing with, and that's why it was so important for me to not just do a record release in L.A. - to show that Portland matters as much to me. If not more."

Rusell's returning to Portland to play in its entirety new album Repair - his fourth solo effort (and his first in six years), it's an examination of the circumstances that originally drew him from town. "In a nutshell, I was married for eight years and separated at the very end of 2002. At the same point, my grandmother fell ill so I decided to pick up and move to L.A., but, by the time I got there, she'd already passed away.I was roughing it for a couple months, definitely a couch tour, didn't know what I was doing, and it took about a year and a half until I ran into Ethan at [record store] Amoeba and started to get the ball rolling on a new album."

Ethan Johns, producer of Kings of Leon and Ryan Adams among many others, chose a selection of the twenty-some tunes Russell had written the past fewyears and convinced him to record a solo album. The first session, Russell arrived at Johns' studio to find Ethan setting thing up with his father -legendary Beatles/Stones/Who producer Glyn Johns. "It was intimidating as fuck, y'know? I'd never actually recorded with Ethan, let alone Glyn, and this is the guy that did Let It Be! That first day in the studio was just kinda magical. We actually came out with two songs that only needed guitar overdubs, and that gave me the confidence to go ahead and make the record." Recorded live with Johns on drums and former Freewheelers adding bass and piano, Russell avoids singer-songwriterly preciousness while maintaining a direct intimacy - a charming companion reflecting upon his years in the wilderness. "There were a couple tracks directly influencedby the separation, but the whole album is about relationships - primarily the one I was getting into. At those times, your emotions are all mixed up, and there's been this steady trail of  death since I came down to L.A. - starting with my grandmother's and ending with a best friend. And then another friend. The album's about trying to take it all in stride."

Despite the hinted torment, Repair's hardly a depressing listen. Tracks veer from effortless, enlightened pop reminiscent of Elliot Smith to rootsier ambles but never sink beneath the weight of their subjects. "For me. it's a little over the top to be dark lyrically *and* musically. If anyone picked apart my lyrics, they'd find them rather . not negative, but who sings about the happy shit going on in their lives? There's always more unhappy things going on anyway - so I've more to sing about." But, with everything Russell's planned - extended UK tour, producing gigs, a rock album to be recorded in Los Angeles and Portland next winter - doesn't he worry about a lingering happiness?