Kate Campbell
(Large River Music)
It's always nice to get a visit from Kate Campbell. She tells great stories and she never comes empty-handed. This time she's brought a couple of welcome friends including popular Nashville session guitarist J.T. Corenflos (Hank Williams Jr., George Jones, Bob Seger, Jewel) and the ubiquitous Dave Jacques (Will Kimbrough, Greg Trooper, John Prine). Country and soul stalwart Spooner Oldham contributes piano to one cut ("Sorrowfree") and John Prine and Nanci Griffith are among Campbell's coterie of guest singers.
All this is well and good and those folks and the many others onboard contribute to the success of Save The Day. But to make a good record all Campbell ever really needs is the homespun elegance of her beautiful voice, some form of accompaniment - a full band or just her own acoustic guitar - and her own fine material, much of which here was co-written by producer Walt Auldridge. Everything else is lagniappe.
Although the title cut and "To The Moon" sound so much like late period Harrison/Lennon Beatles that the backing tracks might have been purloined from the Abbey Road archives, for the most part, Campbell, like Prine (who joins her on "Looking For Jesus") makes modern country/folk music with an old-timey sensibility; or maybe it's old-timey music with a modern sensibility; or maybe it's just good music that makes sense anytime. Whatever you label it, it's grown-up music made with the verve of a teenager and the faith of a little kid.
In "Everybody Knows Elvis" she brings together the two great saviors of humanity - Elvis and Jesus - and joins Bob Dylan ("Went to See the Gypsy") and John Trudell ("Baby Boom Che") in having written one of the best songs about either or both. Her "Fordlandia" is a true tale of Henry Ford's failed attempt to monopolize rubber production from plant (-ation) to plant (auto) while exercising the total control over his worker's lives that made him such a charming boss. Campbell manages to get the tragedy of the story across and get in a few digs at Ford while managing a not so grudging nod to his good old fashioned American stick-to-it-tiveness. She deals circumspectly but not entirely elusively with abuse and interracial love in "Color of Love" and isn't at all maudlin addressing loneliness and despair in "Dark Night of the Soul."
Campbell's ability to be even-handed without sacrificing emotion and passion is one of many rewardingly verifiable reasons her music has such great appeal.
Standout Tracks: "Falling Out of Heaven", "Everybody Knows Elvis" RICK ALLEN
