Somewhere during the 90s I read about the Dutch 2 Meter Sessies (Sessions), a radio program in which artists/bands were interviewed and encouraged to play a few of their songs live and unplugged. The name came from the size of the studio at that time!
Several compilation CDs were released over the years and luckily ended up in my collection, courtesy of my parents and friends. During one of my visits to the home country I found a book about those sessions which included a discography. Thanks to this list I discovered that a lot more of the sessions were released as kind of bonus tracks on CD singles, including some artists I wasn’t familiar with, one of them being John Campbell…
Apparently an acoustic 2 Meter version of his Devil In My Closet was included on the CD single of the same name.
When John listens back to a piece of his own performance after the session, I see goosebumps on his arms. "I've been playing these instruments for twenty years," he tells me. He places his fingers on his temples. "For twenty years I've known here how they should sound. Now I'm hearing that sound for the first time." When he smiles, the scar on his upper lip traces a white line above his mouth.
The second session a year and a half later, with second guitarist Zonder Kennedy, unfortunately is less so:
A pale spring sun gently sweeps into the studio, where John is giving Zonder instructions. 'These guys here know what they're doing and the space is very inspiring. Play as much by feel as possible. They start the song 'Wolf Among The Lambs' twelve times. It doesn't work. John plays much more dragged out than on the record and during his performances, and Zonder just can't get his part into the same cadence. We record four songs, including an exciting 'Saddle Up My Pony', but the magic of back then isn't there. John drags, talks to Zonder, apologizes 23 times and explodes into a virtuoso solo on his replica steel guitar. Emotion cannot be organized, and John grudgingly accepts that that evening in November was unique. As we say goodbye, he holds his thumb and index finger a millimeter and a half apart. 'We were so close to something extraordinary,' he says. 'Next time, we'll hit the jackpot again.’
But there never will be a next session as in June 1993 John Campbell died of a heart attack...
John lived a tumultuous life, born in 1952 in Louisiana and got his first guitar at eight... A few years later he survived a near-fatal drag racing accident that broke several ribs, collapsed a lung, and took his right eye. During his recovery he relearned playing guitar a lot and later started playing in clubs between east Texas and New Orleans before moving to New York.
A chance meeting there with guitarist Ronnie Earl resulted in the recording of his first album A Man and His Blues (Crosscut 1019), a Germany-only release that has since been made available in the U.S.
His playing at New York clubs attracted a wide swath of music fans, among them A&R executive Peter Lubin, who ushered John onto the Elektra label. This resulted in two well-produced albums for Elektra, One Believer (1991) and Howlin' Mercy (1993).
Peter Lubin remembered that first sighting of John as follows:
"Campbell cut a striking figure on stage, clad in black jeans and a black western-style shirt with a bolo tie and a bear claw hanging from around his neck. He had combed back brown hair, long sideburns, and a face that, while ruggedly handsome, showed visible signs of enormous wear and tear. A large scar ran from the corner of his left eye down across his cheek and up under his left nostril. His eye was strangely discomforting too, as its iris seemed perpetually locked in the open position. He was tall and lanky and spoke with a southern drawl.
He took up a battered 1952 Gibson Southern Jumbo acoustic guitar, sat down on a wooden stool, and began to evoke the blues with a dark intensity that was immediately striking. He was a tactical player with a reasonably large bag of tricks that he would mix and match as the spirit moved him. He spun out this lick and that lick in a cascading fashion that would build into a howling gumbo. Over the top, he occasionally made an effort to forge this maelstrom into song. In doing this he would sing extemporaneously, invoking certain time-tested lines like “I couldn’t do nothing but sit down by the road and cry” until it was time to wail on the guitar again. He built his set powerfully and with a certain regal majesty until it was suddenly over and the crowd went mad.
I was truly impressed."
I think the first time I heard John was through his Tom Waits cover of Down In The Hole, but the rest of the songs didn't disappoint either, on the contrary!
The reason for this post was two-fold;
A quick look through discogs and other sites confirmed what I already expected, no compilation of John's brilliant work was ever released...
There's no lack of material, besides songs from those 4 albums, there are scattered tracks, both official (e.g. his contributions to Blues Guitars for the Homeless which concept came from John himself!) and less so (live & interviews on YouTube), enough to create a decent overview for any music aficionado to enjoy!
Highly recommended is the book above!
Link: https://pixeldrain.com/u/5qZDxxjK
ReplyDeleteQuestion: Who's your favourite contemporary blues artist?