Campbell’s debut album, Songs From the Levee, was released in 1994, and she has released more than ten albums of music that ranges from Southern folk to country to Delta blues to gospel and back again. She has collaborated with artists of deep faith, such as songwriter Pierce Pettis, whose iconic lyrics have spoken to thousands of believers for decades. Her distinctive style and willingness to approach issues of race, inequality, spirituality, and tradition blend to produce music that comes out of contemplation but leads into movement for change.

Campbell has been influenced by the South in many ways. For example, take the Southern literary tradition and Campbell’s fondness for authors such as Flannery O’Connor and Eudora Welty. Then there’s her Southern Baptist heritage with its strong biblical formation and the importance of hymn singing. Another major factor in her music came from growing up in the midst of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Out of her Southern past, Campbell has addressed racial tensions head on throughout her recording career. “These issues with race are things I feel strongly about,” Campbell explains. “I keep writing about them as a way to reflect upon the past and to hopefully dialogue toward a better future.”

In May 2010, Conversations caught up with Kate Campbell to talk with her about her spiritual life and her creative work.

Emilie Griffin: The theme of this issue of Conversations is “Contemplation and Action.” I thought of you because I remembered your connection to the activist songwriters of the sixties, like Bob Dylan. “Music that does justice.” You were not of that era, yet you identified with it. Can you say something about that?

Kate Campbell: I was born in 1961. My father is a Baptist minister. I was born in New Orleans, but his first church was in the Mississippi Delta. That was a difficult time. When I was growing up, I hung out with a lot of the young people with their guitars, the ones that went off to Vietnam. They were playing Peter, Paul, and Mary. I took hold of all that, what was in all the guitar books. I thought everybody wrote songs and played like that. “Blowin’ in the Wind . . .” I was a child in the sixties, not a teenager. But my whole life has been influenced by that time.

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EG: How do you think your experience as a Southerner has influenced you? Do you think Southerners are more conscious of, maybe embarrassed by, their racial past?

KC: I think so. Well, I listen to American music. I’ve been influenced by Nashville . . . Kentucky . . . the “Fertile Crescent” [laughs]. It’s about place. There’s a deep memory here.

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EG: I’m especially moved by two songs of yours: “Delmus Jackson” and “In My Mother’s House.” When I was giving a talk at a literary conference held by Emmanuel Baptist Church [Alexandria, Louisiana], I played both those songs. And everyone understood every word.
Can you give a little of the backstory on each one of those pieces?

KC: Well, about “Delmus Jackson,” it took me thirty years to write that song. When I was little, and my father was a pastor in a Baptist church, I would have to hang out with my dad. I had the run of the church. And Mr. Jackson was the caretaker. And [this song] was [about] how he treated me. He was one of these individuals who treated me as if I was a person. He wore starched overalls and a starched white shirt . . . and his wife cooked . . . I would sit in the Sunday school room and color and write. There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t notice how he lived the Christian life. It was like Timothy . . . “Well done, good and faithful servant.”(Mt. 25:21). Campbell is also thinking of 2 Timothy 4:7: I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”