Jim Russell, whose eponymous record store on lower Magazine Street attracted–and still attracts–generations of music lovers, passed away on Sunday July 20. He had suffered a massive stroke on July 5, and had been in hospice, said his daughter-in-law Denise. Mr. Russell was 94.

Jim Russell Records (Photo by Jerald White)

Russell, an incredibly intelligent and canny businessman whose life was immersed in music, and in radio, was awarded OffBeat’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Music Business in 2004.  Bunny Matthews, OffBeat‘s editor at the time, and one of Russell’s admirers, wrote this paean to his “surrogate father.”

At this writing, funeral arrangements are pending. “He said he didn’t want to be buried or cremated,” said Denise Russell. “My husband [Jim Russell, Jr.] said to him, ‘So, daddy: what do you want us to do, stuff you and put you in the store?'”

Knowing Jim Russell’s love of the spotlight, he might very well have wanted that very thing.

A trip around Jim Russell Records…