YOUTHFUL DISCRETION
Adam Levy: Tell me about the first record you bought.

Jim Campilongo: One of the first LPs I bought was John McLaughlin's, Devotion — with Buddy Miles on drums and Larry Young on organ. I was 12 years old.

AL: How did you even know about John McLaughlin when you were 12?

JC: I had read about some other guitar player — I don't remember who — in the San Francisco Chronicle's Lively Arts section. They said he "played with the same passion as..." and then there was a long list of musicians, including John Coltrane, John McLaughlin, and so on.

AL: Was this the beginning of an intense record-buying phase for you, of did you already have a stockpile of cool albums?

JC: Mostly, I had singles, about 20. I had won a contest on our local radio station, KFRC. My prize was the Top Ten of the time, all on 45s. I got "The Ballad of John and Yoko," "In the Year 2525," "My Cherie Amour"...

AL: So this was around 1970?

JC: Something like that.

AL: Back to McLaughlin and Devotion — did you try to figure out any of that music?

JC: No, I hadn't even started playing guitar yet. I started when I was 14.

AL: How did you start playing?

JC: Really intensely, actually. One day I simply decided I was going to become a musician. I broke up with my girlfriend — I told her I was going to become a musician, and that I'd need all my time to practice. I got a guitar and three days later I had my first lesson. I started practicing all day, every day. I didn't mess around.

AL: What did you work on?

JC: My teacher, Bunnie Gregoire, gave me a book by Joe Fava. The songs were like "My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean." Bunnie also had me playing the theme from "Love Story," and some exercises from the George Van Eps Guitar Method. She was really into Van Eps, but I was totally uninterested.

AL: What were you interested in?

JC: I wanted to learn Cream's "Spoonful." After a year, I quit my lessons with Bunnie, and started studying with a guy who knew how to play "Spoonful."

AL: Can you still play that song?

JC: I never did learn it note for note. But I played it on a gig just the other day — I can fake it pretty good. I listened to that song so many times. Players now kind of make fun of Eric Clapton, but they forget that he was so head-and-shoulders above other rock guitar players of the time.

AL: In terms of...?

JC: Phrasing and tone. I mean, at that time, Tom Johnston was considered a hot guitar player, as was the guy in Big Brother. The guitarist from Country Joe and the Fish — Barry Melton — was considered fast. Alvin Lee was hailed as a virtuoso. Really, it was slim pickings. Back then, most guitarists then didn't know about great country players like Thumbs Carlisle, and if they had heard Chet Atkins they probably thought he was too corny.

AL: So Clapton comes along, and he's on that heavy level, yet he's playing in a musical language that rock and blues players could understand.

JC: Yes.

AL: What other players interested you?

JC: Harvey Mandel, Roy Buchanan on his first album, and Johnny Winter on Johnny Winter And Live.

AL: If we listened to that Johnny Winter album now, would we hear the connection between you and him?

JC: No, I don't think so. Probably if you listened to Bill Connors' Of Mist and Melting, you'd here some of where I'm coming from. I also liked Allan Holdsworth, and pianist Bill Evans. When I was about 16 or 17, I started listening to that stuff and absorbing it.

AL: If we heard a tape of you from that time, would it sound anything like what you sound like now?

JC: A little. I used a lot more effects then — especially distortion. But the big difference is that I wasn't writing my own music and creating a musical environment for myself. It's hard to transcend the musical environment you're in, if it's 1977 and you're playing with a bunch of guys in the garage.

AL: What intrigued you about Holdsworth?

JC: I especially liked his work with Jean-Luc Ponty, on Enigmatic Ocean. I liked his legato style, and his subtle use of the whammy bar. He'd use the bar to make his notes sigh at the and of his phrases. I also like the Tony Williams record, Believe It. I guess I like Holdsworth more as a sideman than as a leader.

AL: Did you transcribe any of Holdswordth's lines?

JC: No, I never learned a single lick. I more into transcribing now. I've done more in the past 10 years than in my first 10 years of playing. I never learned the licks, I'd just listen.

UNDER THE INFLUENCE
AL: Do you think influences really matter. If you were interviewing someone, would you ask about these things?

JC: Yes, I think it matters. Those early directions are what people usually end up returning to. I guess that means someday I'll be back in a power trio because that's such a big part of how I started. I think it's interesting to talk about influences, especially if it turns out that a player listened to things that you wouldn't expect. It helps you understand where they're coming from.

AL: What music did you listen to that might surprise your listeners?

JC: I was really into the Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks when it came out. I think that's a great, underrated "guitar record."

AL: How did that album influence your music?

JC: There's and energy and a darkness to it that may come through on my Live at the DuNord record, even though they're completely different styles of music.

AL: Maybe they should organize record stores that way — by mood — because when somebody goes into a record store, Never Mind the Bollocks and Live at the DuNord are probably going to be in different sections, in different categories.

JC: Well, they shouldn't be. When I was growing up, I listened to San Francisco's KSAN radio station, and they'd play Ravi Shankar, then Bill Evans, and then Muddy Waters. Those things have a lot in common, to me.

AL: Right, but you'd never know it by the way most record stores are organized. Somebody who loves Muddy Waters isn't necessarily going to like all kinds of blues.

JC: I would hope not, because Muddy Waters is so much better than a lot of blues music. A lot of blues is horrible. It's the worst music available. Muddy Waters is part of this genre that's one of the most phony and shallow. But what are we suggesting — having a record store with categories like "Really Good, According to Jim and Adam"? You have to have blues with blues. Unfortunately, such boundaries and borders have become highly disciplined, in terms of the way things are marketed.

AL: Right.

JC: But that wasn't true in the late 1960s and early '70s. Recently, I was at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco, and they have all these posters from their historic concerts. They had line-ups like Albert King, Ravi Shankar, and Roland Kirk, all in one night.

AL: Or Miles Davis and...

JC: ...Mountain! "Mississippi Queen" and "Someday My Prince Will Come."

AL: But now there's a whole science to segmenting and targeting consumers. When you buy something online, like from amazon.com, they steer you to other stuff you'll probably like, based on your past purchases.

JC: When you buy my records, they always tell you you'll also like the Hellecasters or Redd Volkaert, or stuff like that.

AL: On my page on allmusic.com, they said if you like my CD, you'll also like the Berenstain Bears!

JC: I guess the Hellecasters and Redd Volkaert aren't so bad then. Don't get me wrong — I like those guys.

AL: People who buy Hellecasters records will probably enjoy your music.

PRESENT, NOT TENSE
AL: What are you working on now?

JC: I'd like to do some quiet material with my new band, with Bobby Black on steel guitar, Chris Kee on bass, and Andrew Borger on drums. My new music will be kind of like Table for One, but maybe a little more straight-forward. I had a revelation recently when I was at the International Steel Guitar Convention, in St. Louis. I heard steel guitars for three days straight. A few, Lloyd Green included, played nothing but slow, simple I-IV-V ballads for their whole set. I couldn't get enough. At the end of three days, I wanted to just stay there. I was hypnotized and addicted to what I had heard. This experience showed me that you could do quiet, introspective material that's simple, and people will want to hear it. People will seek out things that are good.

AL: Have you ever tried to play steel guitar?

JC: I have. I liked it, but I didn't feel like I jumped all the way into the mud. The guitar is great, in that you can go right in at any level and you're there. Anyway, I'm a guitar player. I have enough trouble with that instrument. I don't want to spread myself too thin.

AL: [Laughs.]

JC: I'm serious. You're kind of like I am, in that regard. You don't play a bunch of different instruments. Just the guitar, with maybe a little bit of slide sometimes.

AL: The way I think of slide guitar in my own playing, it's often there for a break in the programming, so to speak. Since I just use one guitar per gig, and rarely use effects pedals, the slide gives the listener's ears — and mine — a break.

JC: I feel like that sometimes, too. After an hour or so of my own playing, I get tired of the sound.

AL: I figure if I'm getting tired of it, someone in the audience might get tired of it. But those guys who play every instrument that has strings — I don't know how they do it. And alternate tunings? I don't get people who can play in different tunings so easily.

JC: I'm still trying to figure out standard tuning. It still messes with me, the way it's tuned in fourths, except for that one string. I'm still trying to figure that out. That said, I do really like Hawaiian slack-key style guitar, and I try to approximate it sometimes.

AL: That's interesting, because I've never heard you talk about it before, but I do hear elements of slack key in your playing and in your compositions.

JC: Definitely. I have a few CDs, and I even got a slack-key book and learned a couple of tunes. I think my song "D'Boat" sounds very much like a Hawaiian tune.

AL: And you play that in standard tuning?

JC: I drop the low E string down to D. If I was really going to get into alternate guitar tunings, I'd definitely spend some time on Hawaiian slack-key. But there's so little time. I'm really still trying to work the things I've been working on for a while. Right now, I've been practicing "The Shadow of Your Smile." It's a pop tune, I guess, more than a jazz tune, but I'm trying to understand the harmony and improvise melodically, and figure out which key centers it's coming from, and where the leading tones lead. I can't even explain some of these things, so it would be really self-indulgent of me to start detuning my guitar, when I'm still just working on the basic stuff in standard tuning.

ALONE AT LAST
AL: You recently played a solo-guitar gig, which is pretty unusual for you.

JC: I guess I have played a lot of solo guitar in the privacy of my own home. But, actually, I don't really play whole songs. I'm always working on something specific. The solo gig gave me a chance to really play and stretch out.

AL: What's different about performing solo?

JC: I had a lot more freedom, rhythmically, and I didn't have to stay out of the lower register of the guitar. I usually will, if playing with a bassist. I could attack that part more on this gig. The guitar was more like a two- or three-story house, instead of just a studio apartment or a warehouse space, and I liked that. I started experimenting. Like, I'd play a song one way the first time through, and then in a different register the next time through the tune, then I'd go through again playing the melody in thirds, then I'd play the whole song in Chet Atkins style. At one point, I was playing a song — maybe "The Shadow of Your Smile" — and I just played the melody, alone, with single notes. No harmony. And I thought, "This sounds amazing." After throwing in everything but the kitchen sink, it was really interesting to hear how great the unaccompanied melody could sound on its own.

Another thing I found was that I could use really wide vibrato, as an effect. I could get the guitar to sound like a zither or something — like the music from The Third Man. I can do some of that kind of vibrato with bass and drums behind me. But alone, with such a blank canvas behind me, that vibrato is showcased. "And now, ladies and gentlemen, here it is: Jim's vibrato!" Also, I never had to worry about, "What's the turnaround going to be this time?" or "What was it last time?" or "Will this chord substitution clash?" I really enjoyed having that freedom.

AL: When you play solo, do you use a combination of pick-and-fingers with the right hand?

JC: Yes.

AL: Do you ever play without a pick?

JC: Only to play octaves. I palm the pick, and use my thumb.

AL: Like Wes Montgomery?

JC: Yes. It's such a nice sound, and you can only get it with the thumb.

AL: Did you use your Vibrolux Reverb amp on the solo gig?

JC: No, my Princeton Reverb. It's a really good amp. Generally, if I've got any good Fender amp, I can get a good sound. I am partial to amps with reverb.

AL: Why's that?

JC: Well, I know it's an effect, and it makes things kind of washy. But I think when you pick up an acoustic instrument, it has a sort of natural reverb effect. But with a solidbody guitar, that's missing. A solidbody has no natural ambience, and less overtones. There's something deader about it. Reverb, in a sense, makes electric instruments sound more acoustic.

AL: On the solo gig, did you set your guitar or amp's controls any differently?

JC: I might have gone for a little more bass in the tone. I would get that by turning down the amp's Treble control.

AL: Not by cranking up the Bass?

JC: Well, the bass is already on 10.

AL: Hmmm. What are your default amp settings?

JC: Volume on 10, Bass on 10. Treble and Reverb are the only controls I mess with.

AL: Based on...?

JC: The room, and who I'm playing with.

AL: How do you mean?

JC: Different bass players get such different sounds. When I play with Chris Kee, I find that no matter how bass-heavy my sound is, I never get in his way. With other bass players, I find I clash with them if I'm not careful, so I try to keep my sound a little brighter.

PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
AL: In December, you'll be playing a few gigs with [singer] Norah Jones.

JC: Right. We're going to play some country music. It's nice. I've missed working with singers.

AL: Did you work with singers a lot in the past?

JC: I was in several bands with singers. I like playing situations where I'm complementing someone else, instead of being the focal point, musically. I can interject things with a little more finesse, and my "voice" is like a commercial break, not the main event. I like that, and I think I do a good job. It's nice to make someone else happy, to serve them, and their material.

AL: I can see how you'd function really nicely in a singer's band, sort of like some classic country records, where the steel guitar just plays three notes here and four notes there, and then maybe gets an eight-bar break in the middle of the song.

JC: With a strong musical voice like mine, it's nice to be able to flex a muscle, and then relax again.

ALL WORK AND NO PLAY
AL: When you sit down to practice, do you have an idea of what you're going to work on?

JC: I do. I have a master list of things to work on, too. Lately, I've been starting my practice sessions by playing minor-key chord progressions, trying to keep a pedal-tone in the top voice. Also, there are certain common progressions I work on, like II7-V7-I — with that dominant-7th II chord. I have a couple of ideas for how to play over that, but I want to work on that progression. I want to be able to nail it. People practice IIm7-V7-I, but that V-of-V thing you have in the II7-V7-I. It's hipper, in a way, and it's common in the music I play. So that's on my list of things to work on. And I've been practicing the song "Up a Lazy River," which has that back-cycling V-of-V movement throughout. It also has that IV-#IVdim change near the end, and that's another progression I've been working on. After I spend some more time with "Up a Lazy River," doing the preliminary work, I'll probably change the key and work on it some more.

AL: Why?

JC: Because I don't want to just play memorized licks. I want to be able to really think if the harmony in terms of the intervals — not just, "Oh, this shape is near that dot up here, and then I can bend my low E behind the nut," or other guitaristic stuff. I try to nip that in the bud by changing the keys. Or since that song's chords move in fourths so much, I'll play through the chords starting with the root on the 5th string instead of the 6th string, and then keep alternating 6th/5th so that it's the opposite from if I started with the root on the 6th string. The relationships are inverted.

AL: What other tunes are you working on?

JC: Believe it or not, the theme from the "Andy Griffith" show. [Sings theme.] I like the rhythm, and I've been kind of messing around with that. I guess I like some cornball stuff. I've been also been working on the theme from "Love Story" and "Killing Me Softly."

AL: Why "Love Story"?

JC: Bobby Black, the steel player I play with, was talking about it for some reason. And the more I looked at it, the more it seemed like a tune I might write. It's sort of like "Lady Killer."

AL: You're playing "Love Story" from the memory of learning it years ago?

JC: No, I have the sheet music. When I'm practicing, I'll read it for while, then turn the page over, and try to play the song. It takes me a while to learn a tune.

AL: Once you learn a tune, does it stick?

JC: Sometimes not. Sometimes I'll play a tune, and teach it to my students, and dissect it, and then if I don't play it for a while, I forget it. But if I play a song at a gig, then I never forget it. It's like a record being etched in wax. Like my brain is a blank LP, and if I'm at a gig, the needle scratches the song into my brain. Then I never forget it. But if I just practice it at home 30 or 40 times, then I forget it. Something about doing it at a gig makes it stick.

One other thing about practicing — in the practice room, I don't play. I really work on things. If I'm playing guitar at home, I'm working on something specific.

AL: As opposed to just letting your mind wander.

JC: Exactly. Through teaching guitar lessons, I've noticed that many students tend to spend their practice time sort of doodling around. I try to get them to be more goal oriented. When I sit down to practice, I always have a clear, focused objective. Even if it is just the Andy Griffith theme.

* * * * *

To hear an excerpt from Jim Campilongo's "Fiest's Ride" (from his CD Table for One) click here.

To jump to the official Web site of Jim Campilongo, click here.