JOHN CAMPBELL
''HOWLIN' MERCY''
1993
55:10
1 /Ain't Afraid of Midnight
John Campbell / Dennis Walker/5:16
2 /When the Levee Breaks
John Bonham / John Paul Jones / Memphis Minnie / Jimmy Page / Robert Plant/6:08
3 /Down in the Hole
Tom Waits/4:53
4 /Look What Love Can Do
John Campbell / Dennis Walker/5:08
5 /Saddle Up My Pony
Traditional/7:15
6 /Firin' Line
John Campbell / Dennis Walker/5:36
7 /Love's Name
John Campbell / Dennis Walker/4:17
8 /Written in Stone
John Campbell / Zonder Kennedy / Dennis Walker/5:12
9 /Wiseblood
John Campbell / Dennis Walker/5:13
10 /Wolf Among the Lambs
John Campbell / Dennis Walker/6:12
John Campbell /Guitar, Vocals
Elvin Diablo /Percussion, Shaker
Zonder Kennedy /Guitar
Davis McLarty /Drums
Jimmy Pettit /Bass
Edwin "Clutch" Ravel /Percussion
Antoine Salley /Percussion
REVIEW
by Thom Jurek
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.
BIOGRAPHY
by Richard Skelly
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.
''HOWLIN' MERCY''
1993
55:10
1 /Ain't Afraid of Midnight
John Campbell / Dennis Walker/5:16
2 /When the Levee Breaks
John Bonham / John Paul Jones / Memphis Minnie / Jimmy Page / Robert Plant/6:08
3 /Down in the Hole
Tom Waits/4:53
4 /Look What Love Can Do
John Campbell / Dennis Walker/5:08
5 /Saddle Up My Pony
Traditional/7:15
6 /Firin' Line
John Campbell / Dennis Walker/5:36
7 /Love's Name
John Campbell / Dennis Walker/4:17
8 /Written in Stone
John Campbell / Zonder Kennedy / Dennis Walker/5:12
9 /Wiseblood
John Campbell / Dennis Walker/5:13
10 /Wolf Among the Lambs
John Campbell / Dennis Walker/6:12
John Campbell /Guitar, Vocals
Elvin Diablo /Percussion, Shaker
Zonder Kennedy /Guitar
Davis McLarty /Drums
Jimmy Pettit /Bass
Edwin "Clutch" Ravel /Percussion
Antoine Salley /Percussion
REVIEW
by Thom Jurek
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.
BIOGRAPHY
by Richard Skelly
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.
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