Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams have made their names as key collaborators to some of America's most revered artists, helping to achieve timeless sounds that are above all else honest.
A husband-and-wife team who play multiple instruments, sing, write, lead bands and produce records, the pair has provided rock-solid foundations for Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Phil Lesh, Emmylou Harris, Mavis Staples and most famously, the great Levon Helm as he went on a Grammy-winning Midnight Ramble hosting spree in the final years of his life.
On June 23, the duo is finally releasing an album focused solely on their own talents, a debut that arrives four decades into a pair of illustrious careers that define what has come to be known as Americana.
Produced by Campbell and comprising 11 tracks (two of which are standards of Helm's famous Midnight Ramble barn concerts and one that features Helm on drums), the self-titled project shows off a lifetime of devotion to American music and a mastery of capturing it with the soul of the thing intact.
In anticipation of the album, Campbell and Williams spoke with the Scene about the project, shedding some light on their time with one of roots music's patron saints and a beautiful marriage that began onstage in the dingy clubs of late-'80s New York City.
For two people who collaborate a lot, how is it different when you're working with your spouse?
Campbell: Ah-ha! Teresa?
Williams: Oh sure, you throw me the hard ones! (Laughs)
Campbell: Well, yeah, there's a different dynamic, but fortunately Teresa and I agree aesthetically about music.
Williams: This has been what held us together, and this is what got us together from the get-go. That was a massive part of the attraction. The music is the superglue in our relationship.
Campbell: And we can disagree, but we always do it respectfully.
Williams: Well, you do. (Laughs)
Campbell: Respectfully because it's always implicit that we're aiming for the same goal, which is to solve this musical problem in its most honest way. So there's a trust level there.
What would you say are some of the big things you learned from working with Levon all those years?
Campbell: The biggest impact that has stayed with me — and will forever stay with me — is the communal value of making music.
Williams: You can just be there for the music.
Campbell: And that when you're up there doing it, it's all inclusive, it's "The more the merrier." The audience is as much a part of this as the band members are. Music is best when it's a shared experience. This is a place I arrived at, as these Rambles progressed, and Teresa and I looked forward to every one of them.
Williams: It was kind of like music utopia.
Campbell: Levon was at a point in his life where all he wanted to do was play music, just have a great time playing music. That was the template for the rest of us in the band. There was never another agenda that had to do with their own self-fulfillment, it was all communal. That's sort of a plateau that Teresa and I have reached that I don't ever want to leave. I don't ever want to make music again that's not with that spirit.
The new album does have that spirit to me, and it's so similar to the Rambles. What do you think is the magic behind that particular quality?
Campbell: Honest self-expression. Teresa helps me with this in ways that I don't even want to admit, but she is a really good compass for me as a performer and a writer, to keep it honest.
Williams: Well I think this is one reason that I fit in with the Levon scene. ... Levon [was] true north with the music. Talking about trust, you know he's not going to let anything phony go down. I think sometimes ego gets in the way, and if you can just drop that — that's the hardest thing about performing to me, is just when you feel yourself thinking too much and just dropping that back and letting the music wash through you in a very real and honest way. ... If you came to the barn and there was a lot of ego flashing around on you — we saw it happen with some people for whatever reason, and they didn't show up anymore.
Can you tell me about "You're Running Wild"?
Campbell: Years ago, in the early '80s, I was in a band with Buddy Miller up in New York. ... "Running Wild" was a tune that I played steel on behind Buddy and Shawn Colvin singing. When Teresa and I started tentatively singing together early in our relationship, I suggested that we do this tune because I always wanted to sing it with somebody. Eventually we brought it into the repertoire with Levon, and it fit really well. The beauty of the thing with Levon was he was into the gamut of American genres, everything from blues to gospel to country to bluegrass to rock 'n' roll and New Orleans, everything in there, and this Louvin Brothers tune fit really well, and the way Levon approached it on drums gave it its own character.
You recorded that a while back, and Levon played drums on this recording, right?
Campbell: Yeah, we first started doing rhythm tracks for this record during the sessions for Electric Dirt with Levon whenever we had some downtime. We hadn't figured out all the material we wanted to do for Electric Dirt, and there was a day or two when Teresa and I wanted to get our record started and Levon said, "Let's record some tunes." This was one of the rhythm tracks that survived.
How did you decide which of the Ramble standards to include?
Campbell: Well, "Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning" was a tune that Teresa just tore up, and it has sort of become a signature version of the song, so I figured we gotta put that on the record. And then the other one is "Attics of My Life." Teresa and Amy [Helm] and I just started doing it many years ago, and that became a highlight of the Rambles, so I figured, "We have to record this for posterity at some point, and this record seems like a good excuse to do it."
There are a couple of up-tempos, some love songs, a real nice Rambling mix.
Campbell: Definitely. Variety within loose parameters was exactly what I was hoping to end up with for this thing.
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