For more than a decade, Kate Campbell has been one of the most clear-eyed, poetic and revelatory chroniclers of the Southern experience in popular music. Blessed with an angelic voice, unsinkable tunefulness, a master storyteller’s eye for detail plus the even-handedness to examine life’s blossoms AND bruises, Campbell has assembled a body of work unsurpassed in consistency or soulful artistry.
Kate’s uncanny grasp of life and times in the Deep South is such that Ballet Memphis presented a command performance of “South Of Everywhere,” which features her music. She performed her songs live with the ballet on Martin Luther King Jr. Weekend in Memphis on January 15 – 16, 2005.
Incessant touring in the US and United Kingdom has built and reinforced a remarkably devoted fan base, and Campbell has appeared on such respected national radio programs as Larry Groce’s ‘Live From Mountain Stage,’ NPR’s ‘Morning Edition’ and ‘World Cafe.’
Kate’s seven albums recorded over the past ten years may not seem to qualify, at first glance, as outrageously prolific, but the fact that virtually every song she’s written and recorded is regularly requested on her solo acoustic tours attests to the remarkable high quality and durability of her songbook.
In the course of returning to her earlier material, the artist began noticing a curious phenomenon: many of the songs had not been content to wait politely; they had CHANGED – some almost imperceptibly, in other cases revealing dramatic new twists. In time, the notion of going back into the studio to re-examine her growing ‘children’ became more and more compelling.
“Basically, it was a way for me to re-introduce them to the fans, even though I’ve been singing them off and on since I wrote them,” Kate said. “Some of them I haven’t done much in my ‘live’ performances, and it was kinda cool to revisit them and think about them in new ways.”
Campbell’s first move was to enlist Will Kimbrough (Rodney Crowell, Steve Forbert, John Prine, Amy Rigby, Mindy Smith, etc.) to produce the new recordings. The pan-genre multi-instrumentalist had played a major role in the making of Kate’s extraordinary 2003 tribute to the female country idols of her youth, Twang On A Wire .
“Going into [this project], I didn’t know what it was gonna be like, to be honest with you,” admitted Kate. “I thought, ‘This could be really stupid,’ but I had REALLY enjoyed working with Will and the guys on Twang – it kinda breathed new life into me. They were great to work with, and they were all excited to get together again.”
Rejoining Campbell and Kimbrough from the Twang sessions are bassist Dave Jacques and singer/multi-instrumentalist Pat Buchanan; the core group is rounded out by drummer Paul Griffith, keyboardist Steve Conn and string-meister Chris Carmichael, with Neil Rosengarden (horns) and Richard McLaurin (pedal steel) adding graceful textures. Each is a wizard in his own right; all have sterling credentials as long as your arm.
Between The Portable Kate Campbell and Sing Me Out, Kate & The Boys rekindle 29 of the 33 songs from albums #2-4, but they’re imbued with a new fire and presented in illuminating new context and order.
“Some of these songs are ten years old now,” said Kate. “One that I really liked for years is ‘Wrought Iron Fences.’ It was something I never did ‘live,’ but now I’ve taken a second look at the song and recorded it the way I always heard it in my head. This time around I liked it so much I put it first on the record. That’s just one example of how it played out.
“And by putting the songs on two records instead of three, we created an entirely new feel,” she continued. “Even though I initially wrote each record to be of a piece, I was interested to see how--when they’re mixed up and intertwined like this--it would bring out some different facets in the new context. It’s kind of weird, but to me, The Portable Kate Campbell and Sing Me Out are all new, even though it’s old songs.”
The resulting new collections are breathtaking in every way, easily holding their own amid Campbell’s enviable catalog (which also includes 2001’s Wandering Strange and 2003’s Monuments). Organic, energized and thoroughly engaged, they will provide revelations to newcomers AND longtime aficionados alike.
“I think it’s a really good thing,” Campbell enthused. “Hopefully, it’ll bring the music for the first time to some of the people who never heard the older records. And, on the other hand, because I enjoyed making it so much, I think the older fans will pick up on that, and I think they’re gonna see some growth in my interpretations of many of these songs. Like I said, I was worried until we got in (the studio), but I think it’s pretty clear that I have grown, both musically AND vocally.”
Even as these wonderful, enduring songs have grown even more poignant, more luminous, more pertinent...