Blues

John Campbell - Tyler, Texas Session (1999)

2021-03-11T10:51:33Z

John Campbell - Tyler, Texas Session (1999)


1		Walkin' Blues	4:08
2		I Can't Be Satisfied	4:27
3		Rollin' Stone	5:02
4		Watch Dog Blues	3:25
5		Driftin' And Driftin'	4:12
6		Medley In C / Chump Man Blues	5:34
7		My Babe	4:09
8		Talk To Me Babe	4:26
9		Blues in A	3:03
10		The Sky Is Cryin'	5:07
11		Terraplane Blues	5:17
12		Mojo Hand	6:25

John Campbell - guitar, vocals

Probably the best blues CD I've ever owned. Produced by a once defunct now active label Sphere Sound, an ancient record company solely devoted to good blues music. This CD is no exception. Using some incredible audiophile technique, Scott VanDusen has put out an all-time blues masterpiece that captures the soulful tension of a late brilliant Texas bluesman John Campbell, one of the few blues players I truly respect. This Tyler, Texas Session reinforces my belief that the good old blues never dies with time. This album shows us why finger-picking acoustic blues will always find its place in music if done right. My advice to Corey Harris, Keb Mo, and Eric Bibb: before you do anything, listen to this album and feel the passion. I believe that there is infinite passion in blues music, and only this and a few other albums truly demonstrate that. Also, there's no need to be black. Campbell doesn't try to sound back here. He just sings the blues with his own natural solemn sad voice, and it works. I think he even has more blues than his fellow Texan bluesman Stevie Ray Vaughan, but that's only my opinion. This album only features Campbell with his unique voice and two guitars and nothing else. The result is priceless. Congratulations to Sphere Sound on this immense success. Now I'm thirst-driven for another stellar effort from this company. Try William Tang next time?! ---thumbsupdisc.tripod.com

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John Campbell - Howlin' Mercy 1993

2011-04-08T08:56:24Z

John Campbell - Howlin' Mercy (1993)


1. Ain't Afraid Of Midnight - 5:16
2. When The Levee Breaks - 6:08
3. Down In The Hole - 4:53				play
4. Look What Love Can Do - 5:08
5. Saddle Up My Pony - 7:15
6. Firin' Line - 5:36
7. Love's Name - 4:17					play
8. Written In Stone - 5:12
9. Wiseblood - 5:13
10. Wolf Among The Lambs - 6:12


John Campbell - Guitar, Slide Guitar, Vocals
Zonder Kennedy - Guitar
Jimmy Pettit - Bass; 
Davis McLarty – Drums

Guests:
Jamie Dardanis (percussion), 
Elvin Diablo, Mid Memphis Rhythm Section, 
Antoine Salley, Madison Cooper, Edwin Ravel.

Slide guitarist and songwriter John Campbell was a man driven. Before his untimely death, he had pulled out all the stops to play a music that was full of mystery, pathos, dark energy, and plenty of rock & roll strut 'n' growl; it could be frightening in its intensity. Howlin' Mercy was the last of two recordings for Elektra, and is by far the heavier of the two. As displayed by its opening track, "Ain't Afraid of Midnight," Campbell was a considerable slide guitarist who owed his skill to the bluesmen like Lightnin' Hopkins (from his home state of Texas), Fred McDowell, and a few others. His solos are wrangling, loose, and shambolic; they are undeniably dark and heavy. They cut with elegance across the rhythms and melodies in his songs. This is followed by a version of "When the Levee Breaks" that is a direct counter to and traditional reclamation of the Led Zep version and places it back firmly in the blues canon. As evidenced by "Saddle Up My Pony," Campbell was equally skilled at transmuting the Delta blues and framing them in a very modern context without taking anything away from their chilling, spare power and poetry. And in the modern rock and blues idiom, he was a master, as evidenced by the stomp and roll of "Firin' Line"; "Written in Stone"; and the epic, swamp blues cum overdriven scorcher "Wolf Among the Lambs." This final moment is perhaps Campbell's greatest on record in that it embodies all of his strengths and reveals none of them to be contradictions.

Campbell was living and playing in New York at the end of his life, and that city's conflicting energies are reflected in his playing and writing. They needed each other, it seems, and if ever there were a Delta blues record that visited the Texas roadhouse and settled on the streetcorners of NYC, this is it. Awesome. ---Thom Jurek allmusic.com

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John Campbell - Austin Session 1979

2010-03-10T14:44:41Z

John Campbell - Austin Session 1979


1. Mean Old World - 4:21
2. Walking Blues - 4:23
3. Early This Morning - 4:50
4. Deeper Shade of Blue - 4:27
5. Key To the Hihgway - 3:07
6. Long Distance Call - 4:22
7. Feel Like My Time Ain't Long - 4:25
8. Worried About My Baby - 2:40
9. Come On In My Kitchen - 3:49
10. Hitchhikin' Women # 1 - 3:03
11. Hitchhikin' Women # 2 - 3:25
12. Shake 'em On Down - 4:02
13. Talk To My Baby - 3:24
14. Mojo Hand - 4:51
15. Boom Boom Boom - 4:04

Guitar, Vocals – John Campbell

John Campbell harbored a singularly bleak blues vision. His gravel-strewn vocals and starkly brooding, voodoo-soaked songs marked the fiery guitarist as a unique up-and-comer on the contemporary blues scene. On June 13, reportedly while asleep, Campbell died unexpectedly of heart failure in New York City.

An exceptional slide guitarist, the 41-year-old Campbell released his domestic debut album, "One Believer," on Elektra in 1991. The intense, lyrically downbeat set, much of it written by Campbell and co-producer Dennis Walker, featured songs such as "Devil in My Closet" and "Tiny Coffin" that reverberated with harrowing imagery.

Campbell encored earlier this year on Elektra with "Howlin Mercy," another walk on the spooky side. An ominous cover of Tom Waits' "Down in the Hole" and the Walker/Campbell collaboration "Ain't Afraid of Midnight" walked the same treacherous ground, although the lighthearted original "Look What Love Can Do" momentarily offset the shroud of gloom.

The Shreveport, La., native was certainly no stranger to the darker side of life. At age 16, an auto accident cost Campbell his right eye and necessitated thousands of stitches in his face.

The wreck did have one positive effect, however. While enduring an extended recuperation, Campbell began to study and play the music of Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker. His final local appearance was at Buddy Guy's Legends last winter. ---Bill Dahl, Chicago Tribune, June 25, 1993

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John Campbell - One Believer (1991)

2009-10-28T17:16:36Z

John Campbell - One Believer (1991)


01 Devil in My Closet 
02 Angel of Sorrow 
03 Wild Streak 
04 Coulden't Do Nothin' 
05 Tiny Coffin 
06 World of Trouble 
07 Voodoo Edge 
08 Person to Person 
09 Take Me Down 
10 One Believer

John Campbell (vocals, guitars), 
Gary Nicholson (guitar), 
Jimmy Pugh (keyboards), 
Jimmy Pettit, Antoine Sally, Richard Cousins (bass), 
Davis McLarty (drums),
Lee Spath (drums, percussion). 
+
Joe Sublett, Darrell Leonard, Ken Tussing (horns), 
Brad Dutz (percussion).

The Elektra debut by the late bluesman John Campbell is a curious affair in more than one respect-despite it's obvious excellence and original voice. The first is that he was signed at all. Clearly in 1990 when Campbell signed his deal, record company executives were still interested inn finding new and original talent and developing them over a period of time. One Believer was outside of virtually every trend on major labels and in pop at the time. Other than Chris Whitley's Living with the Law, it was the only roots record issued on a major label in 1991. The other thing is that One Believer is an oddity even for Campbell. It's a deeply atmospheric record full of subtle shimmering organs and warm guitar textures that accent the dreamy spooky side of the blues more than the crunchy stomp and roll that Campbell was known for in the clubs -- and displayed on his follow-up Howlin' Mercy. Tracks like "Angel of Sorrow," "World of Trouble," and "Wild Streak" offer shimmering ambient textures from which the blues emanate from the ether, tonally and melodically challenging all acceptable notions of what Texas blues should sound like -- but then, Mr. Campbell was living and working in New York and his music was certainly influenced by that late-night environment. These are beautiful songs, tempered in shadow and restraint while baring their teeth at all the right moments. Other places the roadhouse magic comes out of the closet as on "Couldn't Do Nothin'," "Devil In My Closet," and "Person to Person. On "Voodoo Edge," the slowhand blues meets a crisscross New Orleans second-line backbeat a la Dr. John and comes up with chunky honky-tonk piano and shakers to give the piece an "I Walk on Gilded Splinters feel, extending Campbell's sound over a deeper, darker shade of roots music. This in underlined by the album's last two tracks -- "Take Me Down" and the title track -- which are menacing in their conviction and creepy swampy in execution. This is a fine, fine debut that remains in print. --- Thom Jurek, allmusic.com

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John Campbell – A Man And His Blues (1994)

2009-10-28T17:15:26Z

John Campbell – A Man And His Blues (1994)


01 Going To Dallas 
02 Bad Night Blues 
03 Judgement Day 
04 Bluebird 
05 Deep River Rag 
06 Texas Country Boy 
07 Sittin' Here Thinkin' 
08 Sunnyland Train 
09 White Lightnin'

John Campbell (vocals, guitar, acoustic guitar); 
Darrell Nulisch (vocals); 
Ronnie Earl (guitar, acoustic guitar, electric guitar); 
Jerry Portnoy (harmonica); 
Per Hanson (drums).

Produced by Ronnie Earl. Recorded in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This is John Campbell's first internationally distributed album. Campbell was an incredibly talented blues guitar player, vocalist, and songwriter, born in Louisiana. He died only five years after this album was recorded.

Prior to 'A Man And His Blues', Campbell had made several recordings. Most remained unissued at that time and were only known amongst a handful of hard-core fans in the South. In 1987, John Campbell left his Southern home and moved to New York City. One day, he opened for Ronnie Earl & The Broadcasters at Manny's Car Wash in NYC. After Ronnie's show, John and Ronnie met backstage, trading guitar licks on the stairs. Ronnie was very impressed by John's picking, and his personality. On the spot, he offered him to produce an album with the support of members from the Broadcasters.

Backed by the nucleus of Ronnie's band (bass player Michael 'Mudcat' Ward was not available), John and Ronnie went into a small recording studio in the Northeast. Nine tracks were recorded, directly mixed-down to a two-track stereo master tape. Blues, deeply rooted in the Louisiana, and Texas traditions, influenced by Lightnin' Hopkins. The support of Ronnie Earl & The Broadcasters on a couple of tracks ads some extra spice to John's blues, gritty, down-to-earth electric style blues featuring Ronnie's elegant and soulful playing.

These blues are moving, intense, leaving a long lasting impression. A milestone recording session. John Campbell died of heart failure before his time in June 1993, only moments after his career took off like a rocket. Dennis Walker had produced two extraordinary albums on him for Elektra Records. --- crosscut.de

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