[Text by Chris Lisee for the Ithaca Times; photo by Natasha Li Pickowicz] You don’t have to be religious to believe in this music. Two steel guitars moan out songs sacred and secular: the gospel according to Campbell. Led by three brothers, the Rochester-based Campbell Brothers have been preaching their soul-stirring sound for years.
Hot off a slew of shows in Europe and a recent GrassRoots revival, the Campbell Brothers will bring sacred steel to Chapter House this Thursday, Aug. 13 with their three guitar -— lap steel, pedal steel, electric — act. The Ithaca Times recently spoke with guitarist Phil Campbell about music, touring, and the Campbell Brothers’ upcoming album.
Popcorn Youth: How would you describe your music to those unfamiliar?
Phil Campbell: The classification is “gospel blues,” but, you know, the bottom line is that it’s uplifting music. It’s music that’s designed to lift your soul and your spirit — and hopefully you leave feeling better than you came. You can come in and enjoy yourself in whatever you see fit, whether that’s just to listen to the music, dance, clap your hands, sing along — whatever you feel like doing.
PY: Is there a big gospel blues scene in Rochester?
Campbell: Well, not really. Like I said, the classification is gospel, but to the secular ear it sounds like blues more than anything else. There’s other elements in it too, so in our music you hear jazz, you hear country, you hear rock. You hear all those threads running through, but at the end of the day it’s still about music that touches the soul…. The music that we play actually comes from a tradition that started in the 1930s as the lap steel and pedal steel guitar became the lead instrument in the [church] services. And because of that, because they were the lead instruments, they developed a very strong vocal quality around them, and that’s what makes them such a powerful instrument being played in all kinds of music.
PY: How did this band start?
Campbell: We grew up playing in church. Really, we were contemporary gospel, which is what you hear with a Kirk Franklin or someone like that, and it just crossed over… The music that you hear us play is the music that you hear in church. What a lot of people say to us is that, “Gee, if my church had music like this, I’d be in church every Sunday!”
PY: So it’s church music in a bar?
Campbell: There are some people that say, “You shouldn’t be playing church music in a bar.” But we were invited to play in a bar in Boston once and the owner of the club said, “Listen. I don’t want you to change anything, I don’t want you to change the set. I want you to play your music. Because if there’s a place that needs this kind of uplifting music in it, it’s a bar. And therefore, that’s the music I want you to play.” You know, we took a lesson from that. If there’s any place we can go and uplift people’s spirit, then that’s what we’ll do.
PY: Could you tell me a little bit about your new album?
Campbell: We’ve actually been playing some of the songs a lot and they’ve been well received. We have a high degree of confidence that the next album’s going to be pretty good — because we’ve been playing the songs. But, you know, it’s going to be a studio album. But it will have lots of energy and we try to bring that live vibe to it, to even one that we’re doing in the studio.
PY: What’s your touring schedule look like lately?
Campbell: What we generally try and do — because we still have day jobs — but we generally try and do maybe between 40 to 50 concerts a year. But lately, we’ve been pushing that envelope, so we’ve been in the 60 to 65-concert range, as far as performances go.
PY: So what brings you back to the Chapter House?
Campbell: Well, we had such a fantastic time the last time we were there, an incredible show. And the audience was just, you know, bubbling over with enthusiasm. Right from the first song everybody had a great time from the beginning to the end. Fantastic. This is our fourth time playing the Chapter House and each time it seems it’s gotten better and better.
The Campbell Brothers perform Thursday, Aug. 13 at the Chapter House.