McNiff's Folk Sundowner: Ted Russell Kamp

Jason McNiff’s legendary weekly acoustic strand with a different featured guest every Friday.

This week we’re thrilled to welcome Grammy-winning troubadour from the U S of A, Ted Russell Kamp.

Entry is always free but contributions towards the players are welcome.
Under 18s welcome before 7pm

ABOUT TED RUSSELL KAMP

Ted Russell Kamp is an LA-based singer/songwriter, producer and Grammy winning bass player.

Ted writes, records and travels the world performing his own country / roots / Americana music from his eleven critically-acclaimed albums. Ted also plays live, records sessions, and collaborates on songs with A-list songwriters and musicians in L.A., Nashville, Austin and around the world. Ted often works out of his home studio — The Den — and has produced several well-received albums for fellow artists there. Ted has also had the honor of being a friend, collaborator and member of Shooter Jennings’ band for most of the last 15 years. Ted also played on the 2020 Grammy winning Country Album of the Year, Tanya Tucker’s While I’m Living.

Ted is well known for his ability to step into bands and rock all genres of music — the decades he spent holding down the bottom end for bands as diverse as Shooter, Jessi Colter, Whitey Morgan, Wilson Phillips and others have made sure Ted had the chops for anything from major festivals to David Letterman appearances and the Sirius XM Outlaw Country Cruise.

The last few years have found Kamp focusing on his own career as well as touring and recording with Shooter. He tours continuously in the US and Europe, and has releasing his solo albums to critical acclaim. His records have debuted at #1 on the Euroamericana Chart and made the US Americana Chart’s Top 100 Records of the Year. The Big Takeover wrote, “Kamp simply knocks one ball after another out of the park…Saturated in talent and sincerity … good music done right.”

This Jack of all trades points to Dave Stewart and Buddy Miller as role models, in the sense that they move so seamlessly between the roles of sideman and frontman while supplying both substance and glue to every project they take on.

“The biggest challenge,” Ted says, “is always to be myself and express myself while still supporting others. Bringing in traditional elements is a way to make the music classier and more timeless, in my opinion, whether it’s to enrich my own music or to make anything I’m part of as great as it can be.”

“I was born in New York and live in L.A. and love the heart and honesty of Southern music,” Ted points out. “Most of my favorite records were made within a few-hundred-mile radius that circles Memphis, Nashville, Muscle Shoals, New Orleans and up the Mississippi River, Dallas and Austin. It’s incredible — the passion, the storytelling and the soul that came out of that part of the country. It’s a huge part of the American voice.”

Ted dove into music after college. He spent several years woodshedding in Seattle, and recorded four LPs with his trio Ponticello before moving to LA in 2001. Once in LA, Ted formed the group Union Pacific, played with numerous bands, did extensive session work. That led in 2003 to Shooter Jennings pulling him into his band. And Ted’s never looked back. Whether he’s headlining a major show in the Netherlands with European superstars, playing Gruene Hall in mid Texas in the dead of summer, rocking an LA honky tonk with some of the best players in town, or working in his new studio to pull the soul from each song, Ted pours his drive and musical talent into every note.

Rolling Stone Country
“Ted is a Country-Rock MVP”

American Songwriter
“Songcrafting and vocal approach comparable to Guy Clark to Arlo Guthrie … and a primo instrumentalist”

Americana Highways
“A major league bass player, producer, songwriter and singer … making the kind of music which lives forever. … [Kamp has] a wisdom in what he writes and a stone-cold vocal strength in everything he sings.”

The Rocking Magpie
“… Class and quality shine through with every word and note.”

No Depression
“… Terrific. Ted is a start on the rise … in the tradition of Guy Clark … An impressive record. …”

Alan Cackett, Maverick Magazine (UK)
“… A talented singer-songwriter … with probing stories of real life, fueled by emotion, his poetic explanations are truly profound and deeply personal. His voice gets inside your bones … like John Prine with more air and less dirt … a riveting tour-de-force of an album….”

ABOUT JASON MCNIFF

Jason is a troubadour who has made nine albums which people call Folk, Americana, or Alt. Country. There is an Englishness in his guitar playing however, and you might like to think of Bert Jansch or Wizz Jones meeting John Prine & Townes Van Zandt. Time Out writes, ‘McNiffs quiet, intimate, fragile-sounding vocals draw you into his world, an almost timeless place, through which he drifts, a romantic loner, a dreamer, at home with the blues.’ He is often touted as one of the UKs most overlooked musical treasures.

​’I love Jason’s version (of Fisherman’s blues)’
Mike Scott, The Waterboys

‘Jason’s versions sound so fresh, whilst staying true to Bert’s timeless music’
The Bert Jansch Foundation

One of the UK’s best kept secrets”
Mojo

“A superior singer/writer “
No Depression

​”A fantastic body of work”
Shindig!

“A bounteous mix of the finest roots music has to offer”
Folk Radio UK

​”Deft finger-picking style against a wonderfully atmospheric vocal”
Clash

​”Britain’s greatest contemporary fingerstyle guitarist”
Guitar Quarterly

​”A triumph of English-Americana”
Time Out

“The nearest thing out there to Bob Dylan and the Band”
Sean Rowley, BBC Radio London

​”Dark songs of drunkenness and murder!”
The Independent

​”A troubadour and one of the best singer/songwriters we have in this country”
Morning Star

​”Not just a good songwriter, a truly great one”
Americana UK 9/10

​Album of the Year for 2nd album Nobody’s Son
as voted for by the staff at Americana UK

https://www.jasonmcniff.com/