Biography

I am Warren (“Chip”) Russell. I was born and raised in and around the city of Olean on New York state’s Southern Tier. Those Allegheny foothills are forever embedded in my soul. I joined the US Army in 1986 – right before my 21st birthday – and retired in 2009 after a 23-year career, most of that as a guitar player in various US Army bands in several different countries, sometimes under arms.

Original photo above by Larry Ferdinande Photography

My career as a military musician had its fill of ups and downs but I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. It provided me with a wealth of musical experience and wide circle of supportive friends plus my subsequent retirement affords me the opportunity to pursue the production of my own music from a position of relative financial security and more or less free from any constraints beyond my own judgment.






I am wholly content with where my life seems to be heading. I am very happily married to Renée, a wonderfully engaging, highly intelligent, and undeniably beautiful woman. She and I currently make our home in Yorktown, Virginia. I have three very bright and talented children from a previous marriage, grown now and moved away, and two awesome grandchildren thus far.