CAMPBELL BROTHERS AT THE
BAMBOO ROOM



Sacred Steel Express Train Lifts Roof at J Street Venue

Band of Brothers and a Sister Puts Us in The Zone.

block I'd read an article in Living Blues Magazine a couple years ago about the Sacred Steel bands and mentioned this phenomenon to Russell Hibbard while quaffing a cold one at the Bamboo Room. He, of course, was completely familiar with this style of high octane gospel music and promptly produced a Campbell Brothers Live cd with a "Take this brother, may it serve you well". Well, it blew my mind back then and two years later they are booked for the weekend on J Street. The Brothers & Company blew everyone's minds up there last night.

blockThey started off the set playing "Something About the Name of Jesus" with Mz. Denise Brown singing most wonderful and with great power and range, and worked into "I'll Fly Away" and had the room flying with her. She is not a tall woman, mebbe five feet at most,but that's enough to be able to knock grown men to their knees. If there was any more to her I believe she would've knocked us all completely senseless as she is dynamite in a small package and a black dress, moving, laughing, dancing, and my God how she can sing it!


blockThe Brothers paint a background of sounds and steel guitar call&response vocalizations which are fairly indescribable other than mentioning that there were freight trains, suped up stock cars, pianos, organs, and at one point, a police car flying through the Bamboo Room's sound system, and all of them generated by the three big siblings with their guitars. Chuck, the oldest of the three plays pedal steel. On electric guitar is Phillip, who is as big a man as Howlin' Wolf was and when he stands up to play you better hang on to something. Baby brother Darick is supreme on the lap steel and who is an inciter for dancing and getting folks to get loose and shake something.

blockThe Campbells have a large entourage with them tonite and these church folks do their witnessing, not with words and sermons, but by action. Last nite two Peoples from different worlds came together, one illustrated to the other how to rejoice and cut loose in body and spirit via some of the most joyous sounding music you will ever encounter. The church people came to a blues bar and made their presence felt.At Darick's cue, they rose out of their seats and began to dance, and dance and dance. Darick, who ain't a small man, jumped up and exhorted Everybody dance! WAVE YOUR HANDS!! And everybody started doin' just that. Darick goes into the crowd, dancing to the music of his brothers while hallelujahs are called out from the entourage. The Church people got it going and the rest of us followed suit. The floor moved, the room vibrating with tuning fork intensity as sacred steel music pumped out of the P.A. and into our souls. The drums relentless in the attack against our legions of personal demons....BOOMbappaBOOMbappaBOOMbappaBOOMbappaBOOM and the steels cutting the humdrum day to ribbons and dissolving all care and worry into clear night skies and somehow gave us all, for a little while at least, hope for good things to come. I reckon this is the reason some church peoples have services three times a week, as it is a good feeling to have on a regular basis.



block WhhoooooHOOOOOOOO.......Chuck Campbell's pedal steel yanks a throaty soundin' steam whistle from the "Zone" and the train pulls outta the station, drums clacking along in a JohnnyCash style beat, but this ain't "Folsum Prison Blues". I look around, expecting to see that a spur line of the Florida East Coast Railway has been switched someway or other and that a 90 car train full of gravel is on it's way into the ballroom. The song is "Morning Train" and if the energy from it could be harnassed, would have no problem hauling 90 freight cars full of gravel.
A big man with a huge "8" on the back of his shirt and scratching on a washboard leads a procession of church folks throught the crowd picking up more people as it winds it's way between tables and chairs. The whole place is spirit filled, and "my" people are having fun. They are not drunk it seems, they are filled with the natural spirit and happy. The church people have showed them how it's done. One song after another poured off the stage. The crowd responded to all of it, and nobody, even the unnaturally curvacious Barbie dolls in attendance, were able to sit still.

blockThey are nearly done with us, but we need more and Russell, sensing this, calls out to them for an encore. The band has gone over 2 hours straight playing at maximum velocity but they don't appear to be tired,...or sweating. Darick again gets the room to it's feet and they take off for another fifteen or twenty minutes at high speed, dragging the audience along for one last ride on the sacred steel roller coaster. Somehow, a fellow has gotten hold of Old #8's washboard and jumps onstage to jam. Bouncers make a beeline to him, but Darick saves the guy from ejection and he stays there flailing the washboard until the last song comes crashing to it's finale. It is over. The Church ladies are vigorously fanning themselves with the Bamboo Room's "Rumor Sheets" in place of church programs. They file past the bar towards the leopard skin stairway and the cool evening air outside, saying "Goodnite,goodnite, thank you and had a wonderful time with you all here." I find myself thinking, "Mebbe next time we can do it again at y'alls house."
[Click for a TweedMovie of the Campbell's at the Bamboo Room]



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