Cornplanter Records has released the debut album of the Boys Called Susan band.

The duo, made up of former Butler County resident Bryan Russo and his cousin Christopher Shearer, presents 11 tracks they wrote on “Pennsyltucky.”

Russo has been making music most of his life. He's recorded albums on his own and been playing since picking up the violin at a very young age.

“I've been putting out records for over 10 years,” said the 41-year-old Russo.

“I've been getting paid to play music for over 20 years.”

He's also had an award-winning career in journalism and hosted a program on NPR. He now works for a solar company.

“I've always had my music and always had a way to pay bills,” Russo said.

He's released blues albums, New Orleans jazz recordings, and piano indie records.

“For me it's about doing what's right for the song,” he said.

But his decades in the music industry just recently coalesced in this collaboration with his cousin Chris.

The pair recorded music on cell phones and played it back and forth across 3,000 miles of country, with Russo in Maryland and Shearer in Arizona.

“After three to four months we had 30 songs,” said Russo. They're already at work on their second album.

They started on the path that became the Boys Called Susan because of Russo's aunt and Shearer's mother, the late Susan Knudson, who died from cancer in 2013.

“Her literal dying wish to me, and I found out later to my cousin too, was for us to make music together, to find the connection she believed we had,” Russo recalled.

The band name's is in respect to her and also refers to the Shel Silverstein poem that Johnny Cash made into the famous “A Boy Named Sue.”

The area around Cabot where the '95 Knoch grad grew up he had heard referred to as Pennsyltucky, hence the album's name.

In fact, the front of the Americana music album features a picture of his grandparents' 300-acre farm in Winfield Township, where the cousins visited in the summers.

Chris grew up in Arizona. “He plays music out there,” Russo said, “and it was a matter of how this was gonna gel.”

“The moment our voices blended together, I just knew it,” Russo said.

Russo sings lead with Shearer backing him up.

The 11 tracks include “Slumlords of Paradise,” “Unfinished Symphony (“Our love was the unfinished symphony...”), “Forbidden Fruit,” “Degrees of Misery,” “Pretty Pantomime,” “Company Man,” “Girl from Pennsyltucky,” “Rodeo Cool,” “The Home Team,” “The Ballad of Little Cherie” and “Heaven Knows.”

As Russo described the tracks: “The fast songs get you up and going and the slow songs hit you where it hurts.”

“Company Man” is the lead single making its way around radio stations in the U.S. and Canada.

“'Company Man' is about things that you do for the people you love even if you never get celebrated,” noted Russo.

“I just wanted to write a song for people who never get celebrated, the unsung heroes,” he said. “It's a really infectious song.”

“The Ballad of Little Cherie” has a more direct connection to Russo's hometown area.

That song talks about the unsolved abduction of 8-year-old Cherie Mahan, who disappeared after getting off her school bus on Feb. 22, 1985, near her home in Winfield Township. “The Cherie Mahan disappearance happened right around the corner from my grandparents farm,” Russo said. “That was a benchmark of childhood for so many people my age around there.”

Russo said the song is about “innocence lost, and of course innocence is lost so much quicker now.”“A lot of the songs on this album are about people trying to figure out who they are,” he said.The entire album was recorded over four days in Nashville with Emmylou Harris' Red Dirt Boys band backing them up and production by Phil Madeira.Russo didn't play violin on the album. He did play guitar and a little harmonica though. Shearer plays guitar too.“When you have Emmylou Harris' band, you let them do their thing,” Russo said reverently.“I wanted it to sound like you could do it live,” Russo said of his recording goal.Dale Shuler, who also graduated from Knoch, played violin on the album. “He's a Nashville session player, and he was with Shania Twain's band,” Russo said. “He said he wanted to play on this album. The three most heartfelt songs on the album, he's on them.”The album is available at online music platforms, and samples of the 11 songs can be found atwww.boyscalledsusan.com.“Once it gets out there, we'll put some shows together,” Russo said. “I would love to come back and do some shows.”Russo said this record is a way to capture a sense of time and place. When he and Shearer were writing the songs, this whole album was “kind of figuring out what the next chapter is,” he said.“I was looking back at everything that had happened in previous chapters of my life and that's how I got to back home,” Russo said. It was about “searching childhood, where it was I am from and people who meant so much to me and what that all meant.”His parents have moved out of the county now, but the farm is still there, on Cornplanter Road.