When I was about 7(circa '74) I begged my parents for a piano. Instead I got a serviceable toy organ that started me on a path I’m more or less still on today, punctuated by stints in the middle school stage band, a Dixieland band at age 12, high school jazz bands, innumerable rock bands, a bluegrass band, a brief stop at Berklee School of Music and my current situation as a solo acoustic act. Instruments picked up (and sometimes dropped) along the way include slide and valve trombone, baritone horn, tuba & Souzaphone, saxophone, drums, recorder, bass, banjo, dobro, lap steel, harmonica: all standard fare in my world. I now stick to guitar for the most part for it’s portability and flexibility.
Music was a little hard to come by in my house growing up: my father left behind some Judy Collins, Peter, Paul and Mary and Clancy Brothers tapes. There were my brothers' Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and Lynyrd Skynyrd albums, my sisters' Fleetwood Mac and Godspell Soundtrack record(from the movie, incidentally, not the play) and The Fifth Dimension, Abba and Styx albums that my mother bought, and a stack of piano/lyric books that my sisters and I would wear out regularly which included some memorable hits like "Proud Mary", "Monday Monday", "Midnight Blue" and other eclectic samplings of the time. I started adding some Neil Young, Kinks, Boston, a lot more Skynyrd(not unusual for 7th-10th graders at the time) and a host of other southern rock which for some reason was very popular in suburban Massachusettes in the late 70’s, early 80’s.
I now lean more towards alt-folk and Indy music for the most part and have been greatly inspired by artists like Ray LaMontagne, Ryan Adams, Damien Rice, and Wilco to name a few. Other veins I have mined in the past few years have been Townes Van Zandt, John Prine, Steve Earle and his son Justin Townes Earle, Richard Thomson, as well as a look back at big acts like the Allman Brothers Band and the Dead. Solo acoustic work inevitably leads to requests for everything form Billy Joel to Nirvana, Bonnie Raitt to Adele, so I try to spend at least a little time keeping up with some crowd pleasers while I also look to plow new musical ground and keep up my writing.
I currently work full time+ as a programmer and software implementation specialist and do just enough gigging to keep it fun. When not playing or working I spend most of my time kayaking, paddle boarding, sailing, snowboarding and cross-country skiiing with my wife Elaine, who has made somewhat of a career out of whitewater kayaking. More details on her here: www.elainecampbellkayaking.com
Thanks, and hope to see you at a show!
Jeff