Artist: Ted Russell Kamp
Album: Solitaire
Label: PoMo
Release Date: 5.7.2021
You’ve likely seen Ted Russell Kamp’s name on a slew of Americana records as the multi-instrumentalist, producer, in-demand sideman, longtime bass player for Shooter Jennings and as a solo artist as well. Kamp’s 13th full album release, Solitaire, consists of 14 songs recorded mostly alone at home during the last nine months of the lockdown. Relative to his past efforts, these songs and overall feel of the album have a more intimate and singer-songwriter quality. Although Kamp plays the vast majority of the instruments on the album, he taps several artists and friends on six selections, most of played or sang harmony on only the songs that he co-wrote with them.
The first track on the album, “My Girl Now” was co-written several years ago with Micky Braun from Micky and the Motorcars (it appeared on their 2014 album, Hearts From Above). Kamp’s version has a less twangy and more buoyant chorus, adding an elegant touch. “Path of Least Resistance” uses only electric bass and acoustic guitar, giving it a vintage folk feel, as does “As Far As The Eye Can See,” a co-write with Matt Szachetka. “You Can Go To Hell, I’m Going To Texas” (written with the ladies of Granville Automatic) has the distinctive California country rock sound that Kamp has long purveyed. The folky, “Western Wind” was written via a FaceTime session with Shane Alexander, who then sang harmony as well.
“Exception To The Rule” was written with Ed Jurdi (Band of Heathens) during some downtime at a music festival in Mexico they played together last year. They revisited and reworked the song via email and then Ed added his harmony vocals and a delicate George Harrison-style slide guitar solo. “Lightning Strikes Twice” is, incidentally, the first bluegrass song Kamp has written, and he played every instrument.
The album and title track takes the name of the solo card game that Kamp spent much time playing during the lockdown, with dead-on lyrics like these: “I got something on my mind been trying to find the words / one leads to the next then they scatter like the birds / fighting with a feeling like I’m alone inside a maze / don’t know what’s in the cards but I been circling ’round for days.”
Kamp, whose last solo album had a proverbial cast of thousands, adapted well to the challenge of making a pandemic-confined album, adding mandolin, dobro and banjo to some songs, and Wurlitzer, Hammond and accordion to others. It’s also the first time he played his old dulcimer on a record. No doubt these songs will sound different with a live, full band, but perhaps this setting reveals Kamp’s broad swath of talent more than anything he has previously done….and that’s saying something.
—Jim Hynes
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