John Campbell - Albums Collection 1988-1993 (3CD)

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John Campbell - Albums Collection 1988-1993 (3CD)

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Guitarist, singer, and songwriter John Campbell had the potential of turning a whole new generation of people onto the blues in the 1990s, much the same way Stevie Ray Vaughan did in the '80s. His vocals were so powerful and his guitar playing so fiery, you couldn't help but stop what you were doing and pay attention to what you were hearing. But unfortunately, because of frail health and a rough European tour, he suffered a heart attack in his sleep on June 13, 1993, at the age of 41.

Campbell was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, on January 20, 1952, and grew up in Center, Texas. Although he got his own guitar at age eight and began playing professionally when he was 13, he didn't get serious about playing blues for a living until he was involved in a near-fatal drag racing accident that broke several ribs, collapsed a lung, and took his right eye. In his teens, Campbell opened for people like Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Albert Collins, and Son Seals, but he later got sidetracked by drag racing, and it was while he was recuperating from his near-death accident that he re-learned guitar, developing his own distinctive rhythm and slide-heavy style, based in some measure on the music of Lightnin' Hopkins.

In 1985, after playing a variety of clubs between east Texas and New Orleans, Campbell moved to New York. One night in New York, guitarist Ronnie Earl happened upon Campbell in a club, playing with Johnny Littlejohn. Earl was so impressed that he offered to produce an album by Campbell, and the result was A Man and His Blues (Crosscut 1019), a Germany-only release that has since been made available in the U.S. That album earned Campbell a W.C. Handy Award nomination in 1989, and not long after that, the rock & roll world started to take notice of him. Although he never sent a tape to a record company in his life, after drawing ever-growing crowds to the downtown New York clubs where he played, executives at Elektra Records took notice of him and signed him to a contract. Both of his albums for Elektra, One Believer (1991) and Howlin' Mercy (1993) are brilliant, well-produced recordings, yet they only hint at Campbell's potential for greatness, had he lived longer.

Richard Skelly, Allmusic.com

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John Campbell - Albums Collection 1988-1993 (3CD)

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John Campbell - Albums Collection 1988-1993 (3CD)

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John Campbell - Albums Collection 1988-1993 (3CD)

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John Campbell - Albums Collection 1988-1993 (3CD)

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John Campbell - Albums Collection 1988-1993 (3CD)

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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.

Review by Thom Jurek, Allmusic.com

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John Campbell - Albums Collection 1988-1993 (3CD)

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John Campbell - Albums Collection 1988-1993 (3CD)

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John Campbell - Albums Collection 1988-1993 (3CD)

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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.

Review by Thom Jurek, Allmusic.com

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John Campbell - Albums Collection 1988-1993 (3CD)

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John Campbell - Albums Collection 1988-1993 (3CD)

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