Shawn Camp reckons he arrived in the right place at less than the perfect time - specifically Nashville in the late 1980s.
“Well, I was completely naive for sure,” he says in Episode 334 of The String. “I mean, coming from rural Arkansas, Central Arkansas, when I finally got to Nashville, this was like New York City to me, you know?” He was 20 years old, skilled on guitar and fiddle, just starting to think about writing songs, and he says he saw endless possibilities. But he knew he’d be a bit out of step.
“I moved over here hoping to be in the middle of like a 1960s country playlist, you know? And it already morphed into the 1980s, with the digital world coming on quickly. Country music had changed. But I was blessed to have been able to befriend and work with most of my heroes that were alive when I got here, you know? I knew them as personal friends, and it turned out to be a great time to get here, even though I felt like I should have been here 20 years earlier.”
Camp, now 59, has lived up to his promise and his mentorships, amassing a triple-threat career that ought to be better appreciated in the American roots world. His sonorous and buttery drawl is one of the most convincing and communicative voices in country and bluegrass music. His work with the Earls of Leceister won him the IBMA Male Vocalist of the Year in 2015 and 2017.
He’s written hits for stars of all styles, with Josh Turner’s “Would You Go With Me” and Del McCoury Band’s “My Love Will Not Change” on his resume. He had a number one country hit with Garth Brooks. He’s been a collaborator with Loretta Lynn, a protege of Cowboy Jack Clement, a friend of Johnny Cash, and a long time co-writer with the late Guy Clark.
That last relationship was among his most fruitful and enriching. Camp co-produced the star-studded Guy tribute album This One’s For Him, which won the Americana Album of the Year in 2012. He produced and played on Clark’s final studio album, the beautiful My Favorite Picture of You, which won the 2014 Best Folk Album award at the Grammys.
Among the many songs he wrote in Guy’s downstairs studio and woodworking shop was a long-running series based on the life of a locally famous fiddling woman from Camp’s youth. After years of hoping, those have finally been released as a concept album and song cycle, The Ghost Of Sis Draper on Truly Handmade Records, the non-profit recently set up to caretake and amplify Clark’s legacy.
As for the origins of this body of work, Camp says, “I was just down there talking with Guy one day, trying to write, and I started telling him about this lady I knew named Sis Draper, back in Arkansas, that played fiddle. My grandpa and my Uncle Cleve always told me about her, long before I ever laid eyes on her. And they built her up. To a seven-year-old, you know, I mean Sis Draper walking in the room with a big beehive hairdo and a fiddle in a coffin case and taking it out and playing these old time tunes - in my mind, man, she was a superstar.”
Sis Draper was real, but Camp and Clark bring just the right poetic license in capturing her as a larger than life figure, as in the song “Sis Draper.”
Now she came down from the Boston Mountains
There was lightnin' in the air
Honey on them fiddle strings
Magnolia in her hair
That opening tune, which sets the scene and introduces us to the mythos of our heroine, has been released before. Camp included it on his beloved 2003 Live At The Station Inn album. Clark cut it himself on the 1999 album Cold Dog Soup. That’s how long some of these songs have gestated. Also familiar is the widely covered track 2, “Magnolia Wind,” in which we get inside grandpa’s unrequited love for Sis. New here is the cinematic and autobiographical (for Camp) “The Checkered Shirt Band” and the humorous “Grandpa’s Rovin’ Ear.” Camp says he and Clark sometimes spoke about the songs as the basis for a musical. Listening to the album front to back, it gives that impression.
In the hour, We spend time on the album that woke me up to Camp’s immense talent and effectively understated way with a country song, his independent 2002 release Lucky Silver Dollar. It came after Shawn’s early 90s experience on a major country label, which proved frustrating, as such deals tend to when trying to mix authentic traditional artists in with the country radio sound. And of course we trace the history of Shawn’s friendship with Guy Clark.
There’s more to come, he said off mic when we were done. He’s been working on an album inspired by Cowboy Jack Clement and Johnny Cash, two other large figures in Shawn’s life. He didn’t elaborate but he did say he’s tracking enough songs to fill an 80-minute, double LP. So that’ll be a keepsake project when it arrives. In the meantime, catch Shawn at one of his increasingly frequent shows. I saw him and Verlon Thompson share songs and memories of Guy at the Earl Scruggs Festival and it’s a magical, heartwarming experience.
