Kate Campbell

A singer and songwriter born in New Orleans and later based in Nashville, Kate Campbell finds creative fuel in the inhabitants and traditions of today’s South. Blending the sensibilities of Emmylou Harris with those of Flannery O’Connor, she crafts folk- and Americana-tinged material that traces social shifts across the region below the Mason-Dixon Line. Since surfacing in the middle of the 1990s she has put out numerous albums that critics have praised, among them Moonpie Dreams in 1997, For the Living of These Days in 2006, 1000 Pound Machine in 2012, and Damn Sure Blue in 2018. Beyond her individual projects she has also recorded with Pierce Pettis and Tom Kimmel as the New Agrarians.

Her birthplace was New Orleans, where her father was enrolled in seminary, yet she grew up mainly in northern Mississippi and in Nashville, Tennessee. The strongest early musical spark came from her mother, who performed blues and swing numbers at the piano; her maternal grandfather, meanwhile, played fiddle and banjo in informal bluegrass settings. At four she received her first instrument, a ukulele, and later studied classical piano and clarinet before concentrating on guitar. Her initial public appearance occurred when she joined her sister to sing Dolly Parton’s “Daddy Was an Old Time Preacher Man” during a church gathering. The civil rights era of the early 1960s left a deep mark, especially because her father kept the white Baptist church he led in Sledge, Mississippi, open to all. As a teenager she gravitated toward protest songs rooted in folk traditions and immersed herself in the repertoire of Peter, Paul and Mary; subsequent influences included the work of James Taylor, Dan Fogelberg, and Kris Kristofferson.

She completed undergraduate studies in music and history at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, then earned a master’s degree in history at Auburn University. Although she spent a period in California with her husband Ira, she moved back to Nashville in 1988. Her first album, Songs from the Levee, appeared in 1995. Several further titles came out on Compass during the rest of the decade: Moonpie Dreams in 1997, Visions of Plenty in 1998, and Rosaryville in 1999. Switching to Eminent, she issued Wandering Strange in 2001, followed by Monuments in 2003 and the covers collection Twang on a Wire. In 2004 Compadre brought out both The Portable Kate Campbell and Sing Me Out, each containing new versions of songs from her initial four records. She resumed issuing original material with Blues and Lamentations on Large River Music in 2005; the same label later released For the Living of These Days in 2006, which featured Spooner Oldham, Save the Day in 2008, Two Nights in Texas in 2011, and 1000 Pound Machine in 2012. In 2013 she joined Pierce Pettis and Tom Kimmel to record Due South Co-Op under the New Agrarians name, and in 2018 Large River Music issued the soulful Damn Sure Blue, which included two Johnny Cash covers.