Missoula 'honky-tonk king' Russ Nasset dies at age 75

Nasset had suffered heart problems over the past winter, including the installation of a pacemaker in December, followed by an infection around a prosthetic valve replacement he received several years ago, according to his son Sam Nasset.

The Hi-Line native was known for his twangy, road-tested voice, an expressive squint and a stage presence that suggested there might not be much distance between the song and the person singing it, even if it was a tune he hadn’t written himself.

As the rare musician in western Montana who makes a living solely through gigging, he was a regular presence through solo acoustic shows at the Old Post Pub, performing originals and tunes by Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Bob Dylan, Jimmie Rodgers, and more. With various bands, including the Revelators, he played high-energy sets at venues like the Union Club where the music covered a wide stretch of ground including folk, rock ‘n’ roll, country and western, honky tonk, surf, rockabilly, doo-wop and more.

“As he described it once, he was just a folk singer with a loud-ass band,” said Sam, lead guitarist in the Revelators. Discussing his band once in an interview, Nasset said, “I like to say we rock up the country and country up the rock.”

In 2020, when he released a solo collection, "He Was Singin' This Song," he talked about the pull music had on him from an early age.

“I’ve always loved music — all music, you know — since I was a little kid. Some people are just born to it. I think I was one of those people, this music just got me,” he said.

Nasset made his living as a full-time musician since he was in his early 20s, Sam said. At times, that meant playing four or five times a week, not knowing how much you’d make in a year and getting by without health insurance or a retirement account. But that was Nasset's dream, Sam said.

“He always did what he wanted to do. He lived life how he wanted to,” he said.

The family is planning a celebration of life at the end of May or early June with bands and musicians playing Nasset's songs.

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Nasset grew up on the Hi-Line in Shelby. His father, James Nasset, was a World War II veteran who did contracting work building grain bins and silos. His mother, Norma, who worked as a waitress, played piano and kept songbooks around the house.

The radio was the main way to hear anything, although back then the stations were independent and there were no formats, Nasset said. He could twist the dial and pick up rock bands, soul music or, late at night, a station from Oklahoma.

A Hank Williams song was the first he could remember hearing, he said in 2020, but Bob Dylan was the one who set him on a path to becoming a folk singer.

“It wasn’t until I heard Dylan and then realized — one guy with one guitar — you can make a lot of music,” he said. “That’s when I truly got interested in actually playing.”

After attending the University of Montana for a year and a half he moved to Oregon, when he was 21 years old. He’s said in multiple interviews that he was shy and didn’t play publicly until he’d left his home state. In Eugene, he began performing folk songs “wherever I could get a gig,” as he put it. A mentor didn’t like the look of the cheap guitar Nasset had and gave him a Martin that he continued playing the rest of his life.

He learned the electric guitar, too, playing with a group called the Alibis, and backing Ramblin’ Rex, a rock and blues bandleader who was getting into country. They worked the Northwest bar-band circuit, gigging in small towns, where a group could book a five-night run.

"It was a way different scene back then. You could go to Moscow, Idaho, for a week, and then come up to Missoula for a week, and go to Grand Forks, North Dakota, for two weeks, whatever," he said.

After 15 years, in 1986 he decided to move back to Missoula with his wife and three sons: Sam, Jimi and John. In the 1990s, he settled down a bit, splitting custody of the three boys, who’d stay with him in a small house.

“We were never in want of anything,” Sam said. After all, they had “the coolest dad,” a guy who got up on stage with an electric guitar every week. He said his father imparted a strong sense of right and wrong, whether it was helping someone else out or standing up for a musicians' work and asking for the pay you deserved for a gig.

Starting in the late 1980s, Nasset gigged with a band called the Latest Flames that mixed up country with rhythm and blues (or “soul-a-billy,” as a Missoulian article described it.) He was on guitar and vocals, and they had a saxophone player, Larry Vanek, backed by Danny Knolin on drums and Ronnie Mason on bass.

He was a member of house bands on Wednesdays and Thursdays at the old Top Hat, which had infamous discount beer nights back then. He’d also get hired to play in backing bands for touring country artists when they stopped in town.

As part of a trio called the Psyclones, he, Ellie Nuno and Richie Reinholdt toured Slovenia in 1993, only a few years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In an interview in the Missoulian, they talked about how they met some fans who caught multiple shows on their route.

“We were like the Dead of Slovenia before we left,” Nasset said.

Nasset had suffered prior health troubles and recovered. In 2006, he suffered a stroke and was later diagnosed with a brain aneurysm and a hole in his heart.

In the 2000s, he was a fixture of the downtown calendar with a solo gig every other Thursday at the Old Post, where he developed a following for his acoustic work. 

At the other end of the spectrum, he formed a band, the Revelators, in the late ‘90s with Sam joining a few years later. While the younger Nasset had some choir experience and tried his hand at punk and ska, his father’s typical gigs were more of a “trial by fire,” with four-hour long sets and no rehearsals. He’d throw in tunes they hadn’t played before.

“He would just call it out. He’d be like, ‘Okay, it’s in this key, this is the feel, 1, 2, 3, 4, here you go,” Sam said.

Nasset talked to the Helena Independent Record in 2003 about having his son in the band with him.

“Every now and then I forget what a privilege it is to be able to play with him. Then I stop and think about it. I really love it,” he said.

The band was a staple at the Union, typically once a month, for years. He liked the mix of people in the crowd there.

"You get the young students, you get the old hippies, businesspeople, university people," he said.

Songwriter Tom Catmull also worked as a full-time musician in Montana, where you have to chase gigs. He said it was to Nasset’s credit that he took music with a long history like old country and rockabilly and brought it forward into the Union in the 2000s, for a college-town audience that wanted a dance party.

Sam said his father had been playing around Missoula so long that he became “legendary in a lot of kids’ minds, which he would scoff at.” But then he’d be at the Union and jump off stage to play a solo behind his head and it made sense.

He had a great-sounding Reverb amp and a guitar, a ‘61 Fender Stratocaster, that looked battle worn. Nasset once said, “nothing’s ever been done to it except play the sh— out of it.”

Catmull thought Nasset was a great musician regardless of setting, and benefited from a natural presence that made it seem like there’s no separation between personality and the performance.

“You watch that guy play, and you're like, ‘This is who that guy is,’ ” he said.

That ability to win over a room requires something beyond just musical skill.

“He knew exactly what he was doing, and he liked to do it,” he said.

He liked to write songs from his own experience, Sam said. One of his originals, “Honky-Tonkin’ Guitar Man,” touches on a life on the road. One of Catmull’s favorites, “Grey Life,” considers numbness in the wake of loss.

Ednor Therriault, who played the same venues under the name Bob Wire with his band the Fencemenders, said Nasset sat in with them once at a Top Hat gig. The elder musician nudged Therriault into taking a solo. After some admittedly histrionic playing, Nasset weighed in.

“Russ leans over to say something to me, I’m assuming a compliment on my solo. ‘You’re quite the entertainer,’ he says in that distinctive growl. It was a left-handed compliment, and it endeared him to me forever.”

Despite the competition around the city over the years, he said Nasset was Missoula's honky-tonk king.

A back catalog

Most of Nasset’s catalog, including several albums of folk originals, are only available on CD. He was not a fan of technology.

“He made it through his entire life without ever sending an email or a text message,” Sam said.

They’re looking to get his back catalog uploaded to Bandcamp. For now, “Blue Highway,” is available on several streaming services or copies on CD.

Sam has other material they’d like to release, such as an album of originals completed several years ago, and a recently unearthed trio record with a banjoist and a pedal steel player that was only available on cassette.

That one happens to be bluegrass, another genre on his list, although he seemed to care about songs more than genres.

“That's the cool thing about music,” he said. “There are no rules. My late great bass player, Ronnie Mason, he always said, ‘Nobody owns music.’ Everybody gets to do whatever they want. Punk rockers can't, or they shouldn't, disparage folk singers, and folk singers shouldn't disparage jazz musicians, shouldn't come down on rockabilly musicians. Everybody can do whatever they want. It's all valid, and it's all good.”