Finding Inspiration in the Arthur Russell Archives with Singer-Songwriter Katy Kirby

In the thank-yous in the liner notes of singer-songwriter Katy Kirby’s most recent album, Blue Raspberry, the artist credits “the archives of Arthur Russell at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.” We had to find out just why the archives were so important to Kirby! 

So, we asked singer-songwriter Kirby and her bandmate, guitar player and producer Logan Chung, to return to the library and tell us what they discovered within the archives. 

Music has been a part of Kirby’s life since her childhood, when she grew up in Texas playing in worship bands, slowly immersing herself in new musical genres throughout high school and college, when she moved to Nashvile. Her early songwriting projects were small, an acoustic solo EP in 2014, then a larger EP, Juniper, in 2018 that led her to her first label deal with Keeled Scales.

Uproxx described her first album, Cool Dry Place, as “a quiet, meditative record whose marvelous subtleties landed like gut punches,” and her second, Blue Raspberry, as “a masterful exercise in restraint, one in which the most memorable moments come from its quietude.” Her music is soft, largely led by her voice and guitar, but spans emotions, ranging from character portraits to sillier, playful songs to deeply serious, personal ones. Throughout it all, “there is a phenomenal neatness to Kirby’s writing,” wrote Paste Magazine, “an effortless intentionality whose thematics never feel forced.”

In the process of writing Blue Raspberry, she and her band made their way to the Library for the Performing Arts. Kirby found out about it, she remembered, when someone told her about the Arthur Russell archive on a first date. Years later, she mentioned the archive to Chung, who quickly figured out how to visit the Library’s archive, and they took their band there just before heading to the studio to record their second album.

Russell was “a disco producer and a folk musician and a songwriter and an avant-garde cellist,” in Kirby’s words. His music ranged from more traditional pop, rock, disco, and folk to avant-garde, experimental music that emphasized process over a finished product. He was friends with, and worked with, artists like Phillip Glass and Allen Ginsberg, and many musicians today list him as an influence.

Kirby and Chung said exploring Russell’s archive helped them find new ways of approaching their own process. They were going into the studio the next day to record their next album, the first time they were doing so with a budget and backing from a major record label, ANTI-Records. Combing through the archive gave them inspiration and the confidence to face the daunting task of recording in a more professional studio while remaining true to their artistic intention. 

The Arthur Russell papers, which were acquired by the Library in 2015, include over 1,600 original sound and video recordings across Russell’s career in addition to sketches, scores, written lyrics and poetry, articles, notes, and correspondence. They spent time with their band looking through and listening to some of this material.

"It just felt like company," Kirby said. "There’s such a volume of all of these scribbles and drafts, and just pure silliness on paper… It felt like permission to have more fun than we were prepared to." Nearly incomprehensible scraps of lyrics and observations, a note asking his partner to not let him sleep in, recordings of the process of figuring out a song: "There’s a lot of little treasures here," said Chung. 

Chung echoed that: "Both of [Kirby’s] albums have a ton of different kinds of sounds and approaches, with some fun songs, and silly songs, and very serious ones. That type of permission to do that as a musician wasn't always a given, and I think Arthur Russell embodies giving yourself permission to do that."

Chung and Kirby emphasized how enjoyable the research process was for them and for their band. “It’s probably my favorite thing I’ve done in New York,” said Chung. “Best indoor activity I have ever done!” added Kirby. 

The Arthur Russell papers, and countless other archives, are available by request with a library card and a Special Collections account. A librarian is always ready to help you, so come check the archives out!