Ted Russell Kamp simply can’t give up L.A. Regardless of an prolonged stint in Seattle and rising up in Upstate New York, Kamp is a California country-rocker by and thru, and his newest album, California Son, reads like a love letter to the Golden State.
Nevertheless it’s additionally a snapshot of one of the vital prolific, if underneath the radar, careers in nation music. A Grammy-winning musician and producer, Kamp is revered by these within the know for his work with Shooter Jennings, with whom he’s performed since 2003, however he’s additionally labored with icons like Jessi Colter and Tanya Tucker, together with numerous rock acts.
“It’s been an exceptional experience,” Kamp says. “And the journey retains persevering with.”
California Son is Kamp’s 14th studio album and assembles 12 songs wealthy in Americana and indie-folk textures. “Excessive Desert Fever” is a slice of basic, wandering honky-tonk, “Onerous to Maintain” underscores his outlaw nation bona fides, and the title observe nods to the maintain that L.A. has over him.
“I realized from every album, the plateaus and private progress,” Kamp says. “You possibly can hear my love of the Band, Jackson Browne, the Outdated 97’s, the Byrds, and Gram Parsons in them — when Americana was nonetheless known as alt-country.”
Initially from West Chester, New York, Kamp was immersed in music early on, taking on trumpet in elementary faculty, then the bass in ninth grade. By highschool within the mid-Eighties, he bought concerned in a slew of initiatives, from faculty orchestra to storage bands in a revolving door of rock, soul, and ska outfits.
“Like many individuals who develop up in and round New York Metropolis, you assume the whole world revolves round New York Metropolis,” Kamp says. “So, I simply assumed I might develop up within the suburbs after which reside within the metropolis.”
As an alternative, Kamp landed on the State College of New York at Binghamton. Located within the rural countryside of the Southern Tier area, Kamp double-majored in English and philosophy.
“However my total social life and on daily basis after [class] was all about music,” Kamp says of the school bands he performed in all through the late Eighties and early Nineteen Nineties.
He toyed with the thought of attending graduate faculty to grow to be an English professor, however needed to first quell the voice inside him encouraging his tightly-held rock & roll fantasy.
“I instructed my dad and mom, ‘Hey, I’ve bought to strive music for a yr or two,’” Kamp says. “If it doesn’t work, then I’ll return to grad faculty. However I’ve to at the least strive.”
In August 1993, he packed his automotive and left New York for Seattle, 2,800 miles away. However after about seven years there, he was nonetheless arising empty and headed south for L.A.
“I spotted I’d accomplished each hundred-dollar gig you’ll be able to play and I’m by no means going to affix Soundgarden,” Kamp chuckles. “It was a straightforward choice to maneuver all the way down to L.A. than come again throughout the nation.”
There, he waded into quite a few musical circles and ultimately crossed paths with Jennings, himself underneath the spell of Los Angeles. They have been kindred spirits.
“One of many causes I moved to L.A. was to fulfill somebody like Shooter,” Kamp says. “He was in search of a bass participant. I used to be type of the appropriate individual for the job, by way of my love of Seventies basic rock, nation, and outlaw music.”
Kamp notes he used to cowl songs by Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter — Shooter’s dad and mom — in bar gigs earlier than ever assembly Jennings. Now he’s a two-decade member of Jennings’ band, enjoying bass and showing on albums going all the best way again to Jennings’ 2005 debut, Put the “O” Again in Nation.
“I all the time inform Ted that he’s my lifelong musical accomplice. From the minute I met Ted he was by far one of the best bass participant I’d ever seen, but in addition only a actually good musical thoughts,” Jennings tells Rolling Stone. “He was into considerate, complicated music and he wrote nice songs. In all the 22 or 23 years that I’ve performed music with Ted, at each session or on each stage, he has by no means as soon as proven up with out his ferocious dedication to the music, his superb management qualities, and his staff spirit perspective. Ted has been the primary collaborator in my life, a relentless help and a buddy as he shares my private musical journey with me. And he’s simply plain groovy.”
Kamp says it’s been rewarding watching Jennings get extra inventive along with his music. “Particularly with this killer run of albums he’s been producing,” he says, “these artists coming to Shooter to interrupt out of their field, get inventive, and do one thing a little bit completely different.”
In 2019, Kamp was introduced onboard because the bassist for Tucker’s album Whereas I’m Livin’. Co-produced by Jennings and Brandi Carlile, it received the 2020 Grammy Award for Greatest Nation Album.
“I like being a sideman,” Kamp says. “I’m fortunate that I’m eclectic. However I like writing songs, making data, being an artist, being a solo singer-songwriter or band chief.”
In help of California Son, Kamp is touring the U.S. and Europe and can play a handful of reveals this spring in Texas and California. The Los Angeles space is in fact on the itinerary.
“With L.A., there’s this historical past that you just really feel within the partitions, you’re feeling the power,” Kamp says. “It’s a part of this mystique and magic. And, by loads of onerous work, I’m now a part of that music scene.”
