What: The Campbell Brothers with David Vest
When: Saturday, 7:30 p.m.
Where: First Metropolitan United Church, 932 Balmoral Rd.
Tickets: $38 at Lyle’s Place and the Royal McPherson box office
Information: 250-388-4423
When it comes to the differences between lap steel and pedal steel — two unique guitars played flat, rather than upright — not everyone can tell where the sound of one stringed instrument starts and the other stops.
That’s why you ask an expert like Chuck Campbell, who has been playing pedal steel since the age of 12. In his view, the pedal steel (which features eight to 14 strings) is “more exotic, and has more movement.” The lap steel (six to 10 strings) has fixed tuning, “with more bottom end.” Lap steel can be strummed very quickly, while the pedal steel is more cumbersome, due to the levers and bars that manipulate and bend the strings.
Even though he’s more of a pedal-steel fan, Campbell is happy to share the spotlight with his brother, lap-steel player Darick Campbell, with whom Chuck played steel guitar in church as a child. Theirs was an atypical blend of music, especially to those outside of establishments such as New York’s House of God Church, a Pentecostal church at which their father was a minister. There, it was called sacred steel.
“The sacred-steel tradition, you do a lot of rhythm things with the steel,” Chuck Campbell said during a tour stop in San Francisco. “That’s what made it so popular in our church. We could do the rhythm, and didn’t need the guitar or the bass. It’s got a vocal quality.”
Sacred steel, put simply, is gospel music. But unlike the traditional form, in which the organ is typically the lead instrument, sacred steel places the steel guitars up front. It is highly danceable and gives added heft to the rollicking church performances Campbell calls “praising.”
The Campbell Brothers — who, after nearly 20 years together, are considered heirs to the sacred-steel throne — features yet another sibling, electric-guitar player Phillip, and his son, drummer Carlton Campbell. Their bond is tight, and their approach is unique. But even legends-in-the-making can be thrown off a time or two, which is what happened when they were presented with an offer they couldn’t refuse.
The way Chuck Campbell saw it, being commissioned in 2013 by Lincoln Center and Duke University to tackle John Coltrane’s masterwork, A Love Supreme, was a mighty stretch.
“It made no sense at all,” Campbell said with a laugh. “Coltrane is revered in the music industry and by jazz buffs, and we are not jazz musicians. We thought it might be sacrilege.”
The brothers, who are joined in the group by bassist Daric Bennett, did their due diligence where the suite was concerned. Written in 1964 following a precarious period in Coltrane’s life, during which he became heavily addicted to heroin, A Love Supreme was the saxophonist’s ode to God, and written in four thematic parts. The brothers struggled with the piece early on, and found the process of adapting it to fit the sacred-steel sound incredibly difficult.
“We worked on it for about a year before we debuted it at Lincoln Center [in August 2014]. To do all four movements was daunting. Acknowledgment, Resolution, Pursuance and Psalm mirrored a lot of our spiritual evolution, so once we started approaching it from that standpoint, it has become a very spiritual piece for us. It started coming together when we approached it from a spiritual standpoint, rather than a note-for-note standpoint.”
The group is playing A Love Supreme in its entirety on tour, which includes just two Canadian stops. Their performances on Friday at the Vancouver International Jazz Festival and Saturday at the TD Victoria International Jazz Festival are hotly anticipated appearances. Needless to say, it’s rare to see such an authentic strain of gospel music on these shores.
Campbell is more than happy to be the messenger where sacred steel is concerned. And with A Love Supreme in tow, you couldn’t ask for a better pairing, he said.
“There are many paths to God, besides what we believe in as Jesus. We read Ashley Kahn’s book [A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane’s Signature Album] and saw that Coltrane overcame his demons, and reached out and saw the supreme love over the whole world. All praise to the Lord for that.”
