Furthermore, later successful bilingual recording artists do not appear to know—-much less credit—Russell for being one of the grand patriarchs of the Latin sound that is so prevalent today. And yet, although he remains under-appreciated, his legacy is unquestionable. His enormous popularity from the early 1940s to the early 1960s influenced artists across three continents to be open to different musical influences and to the creation of hybrid musical forms that led to new perspectives, international understanding, and ultimately, whole new categories of music, like Rock en Español and World Music.