PAST AND PRESENT MEDIA

"...the past informing the present and creatively shaping the future..."

LEFT: Big Mama Thornton, Jimmy Mamou, Billy Dunn at the Country Club 1961
RIGHT: Life in Russell City circa 1950's

Past and Present Media in collaboration with The Bay Area Blues Society
presents a documentary film project in the making:

The Russell City Blues

Click here for video clips and photographs

Birthplace of the West Coast Blues

Since the early 1900’s, Russell City had been a community of Danish farmers and Latino and Filipino immigrant workers, poor folks jammed along the railroad tracks of the Southern Pacific between Hayward and the San Francisco Bay.

Russell City boomed when an influx of African-American workers came from the American south to work in the shipyards during World War II. With the price of land and housing cheap and available to non-whites, Russell City became home to many of the newcomers. Soon dive bars mushroomed in Russell City, beginning as just shacks with dirt floors and tin roofs, but where musicians could learn their chops, play in front of a critical crowd, and rework Mississippi Delta and Gulf Coast blues standards into a new, distinctive West Coast sound.

From then until the early 60’s the blues could be heard from morning ‘til night. Musicians such as T-Bone Walker, Big Mama Thornton, Fillmore Slim, L.C. ‘Good Rockin’ Robinson, and Billy Dunn moved through Russell City, Oakland’s 7th Street, and Richmond’s downtown clubs, the vibrant scene giving them the luxury of focusing their energy full-time on their artistry.

But in the 1960’s county officials and industrialists decided, with Russell City straddling the railroad line, the land would be better used as an industrial park. The residents were moved out through eminent domain, paid pennies on the dollar for their property. Some residents hint at darker methods, saying they were burned out by a series of unsolved arson fires. Ultimately, by 1966 Russell City’s homes and cultural institutions were torn down and the land cleared. Russell City became a memory, a coda to a catchy blues number.

LEFT: Capt. Johnson's store 1910's
RIGHT: The Country Club circa 1950's

Recapturing Lost History

Our film, The Russell City Blues, will explore not only why this bustling, if often poor, community was destroyed for industrial development, but the impact that dislocation had on the lives of people who called Russell City home. The Russell City Blues will feature interviews with some of the remaining blues musicians who got their start playing the juke joints of Russell City—palaces such as The Country Club, Miss Alves Place, Leona’s Hightower Club, the California Café, and hole-in-the-walls that sometimes never really had a name. The Russell City Blues will also visit with the thoroughly racially mixed residents and descendants of the town, who 50 years later still identify so strongly as denizens of Russell City that hundreds gather at the annual reunion picnic to visit old friends and neighbors and meet the next generation. Through the recollections of the people who played and the people who listened, and the people who fought to maintain their homes and community, we intend to explore the connections between music, culture, place, and politics.

Helping to produce the film will be Ronnie Stewart, renowned blues guitarist, blues historian, and the Executive Director of the Bay Area Blues Society. Stewart will lend his direct knowledge of the topic and access to musicians, club owners, and residents who made Russell City one of the liveliest stops on the West Coast blues circuit.

LEFT: Community Gardening circa 1950's
RIGHT: Railroad Station circa 1920's

Make This Film Happen

If you have a story to tell about the Blues in the SF East Bay area or Russell City in particular, or have archival photographs or film of the time, please call us. If you would like to make a tax-deductible contribution, please contact us. Everyone who joins in will be credited in the film.

Donation Categories (Listed at end of film)


Storyteller	Stories, photographs, or other archival material
Bandleader	$5,000
Crooner	$1,000
Guitarist	$500
Horn Section	$100
Dancer	$50

510-654-2324 or 510-868-0847
43 Ramona Avenue, Oakland, CA 94611

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