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AMERICAN HIPS
BY BILL KISLIUK
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Somewhere between Bill Frisell’s out-there take on country and Merle Haggard’s outlaw roots stands Jim Campilongo, tugging on a whammy bar and making his Telecaster bend to his will. The long-time San Francisco guitarist — whose trio have become regulars at NYC’s home of the avant-garde, the Knitting Factory — occupies some odd terrain on American Hips. Sometimes meditative and off-kilter, like an all-instrumental Cowboy Junkies (the group offer a narcoleptic cover of the Beatles’ "Michelle"), this band can also walk the jagged edge of roots rock, as on the twangy title track, a rumbler called "Like, Hello?", and the appropriately titled slow blues "Roy Buchanan’s Cousin." Campilongo is not quite a match for Frisell when it comes to using honky-tonk and jazz roots to paint a sonic soundscape, but he’s built a singular sound after years of intense woodshedding and playing with free-thinkers like Bay Area pedal-steel man Joe Goldmark. And for those Norah Jones fans who are tired of listening to her multi-Grammy-winning disc, the sultry sensation appears here on two tracks, a dusky version of Patsy Cline’s "Sweet Dreams" and a pretty waltz called "Stella."
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