The Life Of A 21st Century Musician: An Interview With Jim Campilongo

Popshifter: I’m really glad that you ended up choosing to put that song on the record. It’s a great song, and it’s nice in that, as much of a kind of “New York” record as it is, it has these moments of not being jarring in the sense that it’s completely different from one song to the next, but it keeps it—

Jim Campilongo: Well, it’s almost jarring. If memory serves me correctly—and I should know this—”Orange”, the acoustic duet, happens after “Helen Keller,” and it does take a couple of seconds to get used to that. There’s this dinosaur-scream feedback, and then it goes into this thing that, in my wildest dreams would sound like Chopin meets Santo & Johnny. . . (laughs)

Popshifter: Right.

Jim Campilongo: It kind of is successful at that. It works, you know. I think it’s ’cause, for fear of sounding full of myself, they’re both good, and you know, like Duke Ellington said, there’s only two kinds of music, good and bad. And it isn’t like a “business card” record. “Now Jim Plays Chet Atkins style! Now Jim Plays Velvet Underground. . . ” It’s kind of like, well, this is all me. But I’d say that’s the most “jarring” part of the record. But hey, you know. . . good!

Photo © Todd Chalfant

Popshifter: I think the thing that’s great, if you look at the track listing, there’s “Backburner,” which is really energetic, then there’s “Awful Pretty,” then “Blues For Roy” followed by “No Expectations.” Granted, I’m a guitar player, too, so sometimes it’s hard to put myself out of that frame of mind, but I know at least playing this record for friends that aren’t musicians, that helps it come across not so much as a “guitar guy” kind of record.

Jim Campilongo: I’m so happy to hear you say that! It seems so hard to break out of this “gunslinger” thing, and I still feel that I’m not that. I could see why people would call me that, but it’s really limiting, and it’s not the purpose I want my music to fill. I want “No Expectations” to just be a really good, heartfelt reading of that song. I want “Backburner” to be, I dunno, something three-dimensional and psychedelic. I really don’t want to just make records for “guitar player guys.”

Even somebody like Chet Atkins, he was coming from a place of artistry and great craftsmanship. And that’s why I still like those records; it’s why they make me feel good. When I hear descriptions of my music that are like, “If you like (insert flashy guitar guy name here), you’ll like Jim Campilongo,” I always think, “I don’t know what they’re listening to.”

Popshifter: That always confounds me a little bit, too, with a lot of those “guitar-y” things. Not to knock any of those styles of music necessarily, but a lot of time it seems to be that way. With instrumentalists, it seems sometimes that they forget that music is about some kind of connection and expressing yourself, but also connecting with the listener or audience, and sometimes they lose sight of that, getting caught up in the technicality of it. And I know that’s kind of an old complaint, but it’s really true, you know?

Jim Campilongo: Yeah, except that. . . I have to take some responsibility, too. I mean, I don’t think Bill Frissell is going to get accused of being a gunslinger, or be described as being a gunslinger, because he just doesn’t play that way.

Click to read more from Jim Campilongo on. . .

New Record Details and The New York Sound
Making The Songs Work Together
Guitar vs. Singing
Sideman vs. Frontman
The Life Of A 21st Century Musician
Jim Campilongo In 3D?

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