Whether you are a musician or simply passionate about what you listen to, most of us have experienced defining musical moments.

It could be discovering a band or an artist and enjoying everything they have to offer. The special moment could be a live concert or a television or radio program focussing on one artist or genre of music.

For veteran Nova Scotia bluesman John Campbelljohn, it came down to one specific song.

"I heard Duane (Allman) and the Allman Brothers do Statesboro Blues," he recalls, "and what he was doing made the hair stand up at the back of my head. It gave me goose bumps and I had no idea what he was doing. The effect it had, the way he played the guitar just knocked me out."

"I was a teenager in high school and I barely knew what slide guitar was at that time," he says. "but it was the style, the way it slid and the way the notes bend, it just didn't sound normal or regular to what I'd been used to hearing and I really liked it a lot. I just became more and more passionate about the slide guitar to the point where, if you want, I can slide you half to death until you're blue in the face. The Statesboro Blues really started the fire for me."

From that moment on, it seems as if Campbelljohn's life path was charted.

Of course, when you grow up in Cape Breton, music becomes an integral part of your life from an early age. Young Campbelljohn absorbed the local culture but like many kids, he also had an ear for outside influences.

"On Cape Breton Island, the Celtic Scottish fiddle reigns supreme and it's always been there," he recalls. "It's part of our culture but I never got passionate about music in general until the Beatles and Beatlemania. I wasn't like the girls. I never cried but that's where I first developed the passion."

  Campbelljohn not only enjoyed what he heard, he liked what he saw as well. The excitement of playing to a crowd, the adrenaline rush that results from being the focus of attention, the allure of living the life of a rock and roll star. Those are not unusual fantasies but Campbelljohn took matters one step further than most of us and he actually picked up an instrument - his father's acoustic guitar.

"I was just fascinated by what it would be like to perform live on stage," he admits, "and that kind of bug bit me and stuck with me, and the guitar, I suppose, affected me the most. My dad showed me a few chords and I basically took it from there."

Good thing the music was a source of inspiration because conventional methods of education certainly were not. Campbelljohn struggled in school and found it difficult to apply himself. Without an education, without a passion, he risked struggling his entire life. Fortunately there was music and the drifting young man deserved full marks for recognizing an opportunity when he saw it.

"When I was a teenager, I wasn't much of a… in fact, I'm still not any kind of an intellectual," he says. "I didn't have the discipline in school. I didn't have the drive to make 90s and 100s. But I was becoming really interested and passionate about the music thing and I wanted to learn more and more so I did go to school and study that, the music related stuff and the studio related stuff.

"My folks, at first, advised me that there were other things in life and other more normal things in life that could be, make you more comfortable. And now, hundreds of millions of dollars later, look at me. If you believe that!"

Before he made his hundreds of millions, Campbelljohn continued to work in the music business after he left school and by the time the 1980s rolled around, he had founded a blues-rock band. However, it quickly evolved into a top-40 band simply to pay the bills. Something had to pay for the giant PA system along with a truck and this arrangement made it possible. It didn't last long, though.

"I smartened up, woke up, and realized that I couldn't do this anymore if I wanted to be serious," says Campbelljohn.

Around that time, there was one very special musician who was having a profound effect on the entire music industry, and especially on the popularity of blues. That musician was Stevie Ray Vaughan and suddenly, there was a new market for blues.

"Probably in the early 1990s is when I decided to chuck the standard guitar and go open chords to slide guitar," says Campbelljohn. "Stevie Ray Vaughan made such a positive impact on blues, and blues guitar players specifically. It seems that every time the word blues was mentioned, you saw some young guy with a Strat and a hat kinda thing."

As influential as SRV was in opening doors for blues musicians everywhere, Campbelljohn maintains he was not the be-all and end-all in blues. One drawback to the Texas slinger's popularity resulted in casual music fans believing he was playing original songs. While Vaughan had a unique style and he took blues to new popular heights, his music was based on the groundbreaking work of other artists.

"If you're crazy enough about it (the blues), you do your homework and you realize that he was really good at copying other people," says Campbelljohn. "I don't want to take away from his talent. He had the passion and the talent and the combination of the two make an exceptional player.

"Certainly if you can play blues, you can't learn from some guy who became popular in the year 2001 and expect to have depth. You have to go back to the source, in my opinion. You really gotta' do your homework and the research and it will come out in your playing." Campbelljohn has his favourites. In addition to the Allman Brothers and the Beatles, he'll tell you about Missisippi Fred McDowell and Sonny Landreth and his "behind the slide fretting technique." And surprisingly enough, he'll tell you about being drawn to his own personal musical roots.

"I guess the Celtic influence is showing its face in recent years," says Campbelljohn. "I find myself being influenced and entertained by it more and more each day and week down here."

There are other Canadian acts he has a lot of respect for and he's sure to cover all the influences in his backyard, so to speak. More than a few Maritimers have held their own in blues circles and more than a few are currently carrying the torch.

"Oh, well old Dutch, I guess I have to start at home," says Campbelljohn referring to blues icon Dutch Mason. "Dutch, whatever you make of Dutch, he is a big influence. He's got a very fundamental style but you can pick his vocal, you can pick his sound out right away amongst a hundred different people.

"Matt Minglewood has actually been a big influence because Cape Breton Island isn't exactly blues country, but Matt Minglewood was passionate about the blues. There's some local boys down here, Glamour Puss and Hot Toddy. Those guys are real hard workers and we're living in a land here of very sparse population so we all travel a lot."

Several years ago, Campbelljohn hooked up with bassist Bruce Moore and drummer Steve Preeper (both from Halifax) to form the John Campbelljohn Trio. The three have been responsible for three CD releases: How Does It Feel (issued in 1993); Hook, Slide and Sinker (released in 1999); and Nerves of Steel (issued in 2001). All were critically acclaimed and led to several awards and nominations. Campbelljohn was named Blues Artist of the Year at the East Coast Music Awards in 1999.

"How Does It Feel was recorded in '92, early 93 and that was a collection of songs that I had written through the years," says Campbelljohn. "For the most part they weren't traditional blues tunes. They were sort of blues influenced tunes. I had a fairly big budget because I wanted to do it right. Looking back on it, I'm proud of it but it was produced and so slick that it became really difficult to interpret on stage and reproduce it on stage for, at the time, a four-piece band.

"I made a deliberate attempt for my next record to do it as live off the floor as possible so that we could accurately reproduce the tunes on stage and people would hear what they get if they chose to buy the album. It was more of just what came from the heart as opposed to sitting down and going over and over and over and adding instruments and doing this and doing that and remixing.

"I decided to continue in that direction and the album that was released in the fall last year in Canada, Nerves of Steel, is roughly more of the same, you know, a deliberate attempt to do it like a band performing live. So I'm quite comfortable to continue in that direction." Not that there aren't a few bumps in the road along the way. After several years as a unit, the trio is undergoing a change as bassist Moore left the band in September 2001. Preeper remains on drums and Campbelljohn will record and tour with some new blood for the first time in years. Currently, plans are in the works for a new live CD to be released in Europe early in 2003, followed by a Canadian release shortly thereafter. That will give Campbelljohn plenty of time to work on a new studio album after that.

And remember that Celtic influence he referred to earlier? Well Campbelljohn has an interesting little side-project going on. Late in 2001, he began working with with another musician named David MacIsaac doing some local shows as a duo and the results leave him excited about the possibilities.

"Dave MacIsaac is just brilliant," says Campbelljohn, "and he's toured the world with Natalie MacMaster doing the Celtic stuff but people don't realize that he's just as good on the blues thing. The old drive, the old passion is back when him and I get together. It's just a real thrill and people are noticing that and I anticipate us doing more work together."

Many musicians would maintain the most enjoyable aspect of their careers is performing on stage and Campbelljohn admits the excitement of a live concert never wanes. But living and succeeding is all about balance and that's what makes family time important as well. He likes being with his wife and two young daughters (age 10 and six), the oldest of whom is already attending guitar classes and particpating in a choir.

"I get a big thrill in being home," he says. "It's just nice to be hanging out with the family and keeping tack of their extra-cirricular activities.

"You know, when you go for long stretches of time it's great to be home. It's tough on my wife when I'm gone. But when I'm on the road, I don't even get to be with the family. You go through all these mixed emotions when you're away like 'What a cruel bastard I am for not being a father at home,' and all that kind of stuff. When I get home from a tour, it's pretty exciting, I tell ya'."

"So when it's time to tour, there are mixed emotions. Aside from touring Canada, Campbelljohn has also been on several European excursions. Those gigs, interestingly enough, arose largely because of the growing influence of the Internet. As a result, the John Campbelljohn Trio has an enthusiastic European following, particularly in Germany.

  "I always wanted to go to Europe, especially since it's just across the pond here in Halifax. I thought Germany had the strongest economy, and I found two reputable blues labels based in Germany. I e-mailed them and told these two labels that I have an independent CD (Hook, Slide and Sinker had just been released) and that I'd be happy to send them a package if they were interested.

"So both of them e-mailed back and said sure. I never heard from one label again but the other label sent me an e-mail and the day I got it I thought, 'Here we go, my first Internet rejection letter'. I opened up the e-mail and they said, 'Thank you for your submission. We listened to it and we really enjoyed it', and I thought, 'Yeah, that's what all my other rejection letters say, 'and you remind us of this artist and that artist', and I said, 'Yeah, been there, done that'. Then it said, 'We are prepared to offer you this proposal', and my jaw dropped.

"The first thing I did was I jumped four feet in the air and I went to the door and I screamed at my wife across the court here talking to the neighbours. I yelled, 'Get over here and take a look at this'.

"We've been over there a good ten times in the last two and half years. So I have the Internet to thank for that."

There is one last thing to be said. Some people may conclude that playing the blues, or that playing slide guitar in a blues band does not lend itself to variety, and that there are limits to your musical realms. The truth, however, is unveiled in John Campbelljohn's music. His versatility and the emotion behind his songs and performances proves those boundaries can be transcended.

Maybe it's those Cape Breton influences. Maybe it's the nature of the blues. Maybe it's a little of both.

Feature by Baron Bedesky. Photo by John Sherlock.
© Copyright CanadianBlues.ca 2002