My beloved husband, Russell Bassman
July 5, 2008 – 3:16 AMIt’s 4 in the morning … I’m really sorry, I can’t sleep.
My beloved husband Russell Bassman, died yesterday, friday morning, at 11 am. He had an extremely sudden and unexpected heart attack at home. I don’t think he ever knew what happened, and he never regained consciousness. It was very fast. Very fast. I walked into his studio, and he was in the motion of lighting a cigarette, and made as though to stand up, but fell down on the floor. I called 911 but he was dead when we got him to the hospital.
I am devastated, and I’m so sorry to tell everybody this. I loved Russell tremendously, and I tried to tell him often. He didn’t let many people into his life, and was a very private person, so if you were close to him, please feel honored, for he did not choose his friends lightly. I feel so honored that he let me into his heart and chose me for his wife. I feel horrible for him that he did not get the long years of happiness he was due. I grieve that he died young and so suddenly when he just wanted to enjoy life and be happy for a change. I hope I gave him a couple of years of goodness and some peace and a lot of love. That’s all I wanted to give him. He was such a wonderful man, and he loved me like nobody ever had, and gave me so much that I’m wordless as to how to express it. He was a fantastically talented man, and was going to play a show at Reggie’s Rock Club this July 26th opening for his friends The Hearers. Russell recorded and played with several bands of note, including Plush, Epic Soundtracks, Nikki Sudden, the Psychoviolets, Dolomite, and others I’m forgetting right now … he was known as a bassist, (how can you get away from that with a name like Bassman?) but his true love was the pedal steel guitar and he was so talented on guitar, piano, and pedal steel, and recorded under his own monikers of The Russell Bassman Experience, and in the past as Art Space.
I can’t sleep right now, I just got off the phone with my mother, I’ve been on the phone all day with various people trying to let them know what happened in such a sudden circumstance that _I_ don’t even know what happened, and I’m trying to make sense of it. One minute he was sitting in bed beside me, and the next he was gone. The doctor said he never suffered. I pray that is true. I hope it was fast and he did not suffer or feel any fear or pain. It was so sudden I can’t even process it, really, so I’m typing this out to all of you.
Russell often said, “Less fighting, more hugging!” and I say that to all of you … let the daily petty stuff slide by and hug the one you are with and cherish them. Do that for us. Please. His favorite band was the Polyphonic Spree, and he had just seen them in Milwaukee for the 9th time this last weekend. Their message is LOVE, and HOPE. and I know Russell rejoiced in that. Please put your arms around somebody and just love them and think of Russell when you do. It would honor him, in my mind, to have love extended to the ones you love and need. It’s so hard in this life. It’s not easy. You gotta be good, you gotta be strong, you gotta be 2000 places at once. and we’re all trying. He was trying. I’m trying. I know you’re trying.
Be good, Russell, I pray to almighty god above that you are in heaven with Epic right now, and don’t worry about me. I will hold down the fort here. I love you so much and I only wish you the inner peace that you wished for me — all of that, and so much more, and joy, and beauty, and heaven above, and the friends you had loved and lost ahead of you — be there, and be good, I love you so much, bb. I’ll never stop telling you how much I love you, or saying goodbye, because there is no end to it. You are the most important part of me. You made my life what it was and is. And I will honor you in every way that I know how, I will do my best. You deserve nothing less.