JIM CAMPILONGO
STRING CHARMER
Idiosyncratic, unpredictable and always entertaining, Jim Campilongo talks Teles, Roy Buchanan and his 4TET’s new fire-breathing album, She Loved the Coney Island Freak Show.
BY BILL MILKOWSKI
“I HAVE THIS ‘ONE EYE ON THE AUDIENCE TO MAKE SURE THEY’RE NOT BORED’ ASPECT TO ME. AND SOMETIMES I WISH I DIDN’T”
A MODERN-DAY MASTER of the Telecaster, Jim Campilongo is often lumped into Americana or roots rock, but his modus operandi is just a bit more twisted and way more nuanced to fit neatly into those categories. Think of Danny Gatton in uninhibited Funhouse mode, where he’d play everything from Duke Ellington’s signature “Take the A Train” to TV themes like The Honeymooners, The Untouchables, Perry Mason and Rocky and Bullwinkle. Or Roy Buchanan delivering everything from a crying instrumental rendition of Patsy Cline’s “Sweet Dreams” to the shit-kickin’ anthem “Cajun,” his own profoundly cathartic “The Messiah Will Come Again” or a faithful reading of Hank Williams’ “Hey Good Lookin’” on his self-titled 1972 debut.
Jim Campilongo performs live. He held longstanding gigs in New York during his 21 years there, including at 55 Bar, the Living Room, the
Knitting Factory and Rockwood
Music Hall.
BRIAN GELTNER
Campilongo swims in those same eclectic waters, and he manages to consistently deliver with unwavering commitment and virtuosity mixed with humor. A composer of more than 800 idiosyncratic ditties with tongue-in-cheek titles like “Awful Pretty, Pretty Awful,” “I’m Helen Keller and You’re a Waffle Iron,” “Heaven Is Creepy” and “The Past Is Looking Brighter and Brighter,” Campilongo has nodded directly to Gatton and Buchanan in past outings as well as to other guitar heroes like Les Paul, Chet Atkins, Jimmy Bryant and Link Wray. For his 16th release as a leader, the typically varied and endlessly entertaining She Loved the Coney Island Freak Show, he is joined by second guitarist Luca Benedetti, bassist Andy Hess and drummer Dan Rieser, who comprise his 4TET.
A longtime contributor to Guitar Player (his popular Vinyl Treasures column has appeared monthly in the magazine since 2018), the San Francisco native worked with a Buenos Aires luthier named Rafa to come up with the Lumiere Jim Campilongo Signature T-Model guitar. For Coney Island Freak Show, however, he relied strictly on his 1959 Fender Telecaster.
After living in New York for 21 years (from 2002 to 2023), Campilongo returned to the Bay Area. With a full schedule of gigs through the summer, including a string of dates in Mexico City with a different quartet (keyboardist Erik Deutsch, bassist Fer Ruvel and drummer Jorge Servin), he was looking forward at the time of this interview to CD-release gigs with his 4TET at his old haunts in New York City in early September, followed by a two-month residency in Buenos Aires in September and October. We began our conversation by noticing some similarities in our musical tastes.
JIM SERGIO
Looking at the archives of your Vinyl Treasures column, I was counting the number of those same records that I’ve loved over time, like Harvey Mandel’s The Snake, Roy Buchanan’s Second Album, Guitar Sounds From Lenny Breau, Kenny Burrell’s Midnight Blue, Junior Brown’s Guit With It, and so many more.
All important albums for me. I’d also have to mention Pat Martino’s Joyous Lake, which is like one of the top 10 records for me. Pat had such a unique approach on that album that wasn’t really jazz or rock; it was simply Pat Martino. It’s probably his most fully realized album. And I’m looking forward to reading your book about Pat [Here And Now! The Autobiography of Pat Martino, Backbeat Books]. I just bought it on Amazon.