Shelley Campbell – Blue Ridge Reveille
Shelley Campbell lives in Vancouver, B.C., but Blue Ridge Reveille finds her with Virginia on her mind. The 36-year-old singer-songwriter spent time in the American south when she was younger, and this winningly winsome sophomore release conjures up the ghosts of her past life.
Shotgun Slim surfaces to give her a cigarette in the hushed opening track “Drivin You”, while the soft-jangle “Typical Truckstop” has her sharing bad interstate coffee with bored waitresses and grizzled Kenworth jockeys. That such characters wear their Stetsons, beehive hairdos and trucker hats with no sense of irony is a tip-off that Campbell’s affection for the simple life is a genuine one.
So is her love for understated, sunset-golden country. Even though there’s no shortage of banjo, lap steel, organ and mandolin in the songs, much of Blue Ridge Reveille is dying-campfire quiet, making the album best for hot summer nights when the crickets are singing and the moon’s hanging full.
Half the fun is figuring out what’s fact and what’s fiction. Did Campbell at one point ride shotgun with Crankshaft Mark, a man convinced he’d be better off selling his rig for parts? Did she spend a December 31 slugging back brandy, smoking cheap cigars, and listening to pensioners tell war stories as documented in the bittersweet waltz “New Year’s Eve At The Legion”?
“One thing’s for certain” Campbell’s shooting straight from her melancholy heart in “Porchswing”, in which she confesses: “Sweet sweet Virginia I have missed you/And I’m coming back to you soon.” You can take the girl out of the south, but clearly you can’t take the south out of the girl.