“This is as much Guy Clark’s album as it is mine,” says GRAMMY-winning producer, songwriter, and member of traditional bluegrass torchbearers, The Earls of Leicester, Shawn Camp. The album? A concept of sorts, built on the songs born from Camp and Clark’s most revisited muse, Sis Draper, and one which Guy Clark fans have been looking forward to almost as much as Camp himself.
Camp was seven years old when a traveling fiddle player named Sis Draper finally arrived at a pickin’ party in the hills of Perry County, Arkansas. To young Camp, Draper was already a legend—and he was dying to play with her. Twenty-five years later, in Guy Clark’s basement workshop in Nashville, Camp and Clark were stumped on what they’d write their next song about. Camp told Clark about Sis Draper; the lore, the excitement. “Guy said, ‘Well, there’s your song,’” Camp remembers. “We wrote ‘Sis Draper’ that day. ‘Magnolia Wind’ came next. For years, we would work on other songs, then fall into ‘Sis.’ If we got stuck on something, we’d end up going to the Sis Draper project.”
On September 12, Shawn Camp’s The Ghost of Sis Draper—featuring ten songs co-written by Camp and Clark and one solo Clark composition—will be released on Truly Handmade Records, the perfect resting place for over a decade’s worth of imagination between the two songwriters. “Now, Truly Handmade Records, the label that manages Guy’s legacy, is the home of Shawn Camp and The Ghost of Sis Draper, a masterpiece album that only Shawn could record,” says Tamara Saviano, President and Creative Director of Truly Handmade Records. “Shawn is the keeper of the flame of Sis Draper. Truly Handmade Records is the keeper of Guy’s legacy. It’s a match made in folk music heaven.”
The Ghost of Sis Draper is a concept album that plays by its own rules, loosely calibrated by Camp and Clark. The songs are tied to one another by characters, narratives, and kernels of old-time fiddle tunes. Arkansas fiddle great Tim Crouch breathes life into the legend of Sis Draper’s fiddlin’, supported by Mike Bub on bass, Chris Henry on mandolin, Jimmy Stewart on dobro, Cory Walker on banjo, and of course, Camp on guitar and vocals. Captured in one day at the studio formerly known as The Cowboy Arms Hotel and Recording Spa, now simply called Clement House, the album immerses listeners in a sharply drawn world: The devil’s box is temptation and salvation; life is beautiful, but death lurks nearby; and the hero is a wayfaring, fiddle-wielding woman called Sis.
Camp and Clark co-wrote every song on the album, save one, which Clark wrote alone. Clark released six of the songs on his own albums over the years, but the seven other tunes on The Ghost of Sis Draper are being released for the first time. “It’s partially fairytale and partially truth,” Camp says with a grin. “We intentionally wrote songs that fit together.” So here, for the first time, is the definitive conclusion of the Sis Draper saga and a beautiful tribute to Camp’s old pal Guy Clark and their time writing songs together. “That’s part of my passion for putting it out,” says Camp. “To try and keep him alive!”
To pre-save The Ghost of Sis Draper ahead of its September 12th release, please visit this link. Camp will appear at the Mini Music Fest in Key West, Florida, July 30-August 2. A full list of Camp’s tour dates can be found below. For more information, check out shawncamp.com.
The Ghost of Sis Draper Tracklist (all songs written by Shawn Camp and Guy Clark except where noted):
1. Sis Draper
2. Magnolia Wind
3. Soldiers Joy 1864
4. The Fiddlin' Preacher
5. Old Hillybilly Hand-Me-Down (by Shawn Camp, Guy Clark, Verlon Thompson)
6. The Checkered Shirt Band
7. Big Foot Stomp
8. Grandpa's Rovin' Ear
9. Cornmeal Waltz
10. New Cut Road (by Guy Clark)
11. The Death of Sis Draper (part 1)
12. Hello Dyin' Day
13 The Death of Sis Draper (part 2)
14. The Ghost of Sis Draper
Catch Shawn Camp On Tour:
July 30-August 2 - Key West, FL - The Mini Music Festival
August 30 - Mill Spring, NC - The Earl Scruggs Music Festival *
August 31 - Mill Spring, NC - The Earl Scruggs Music Festival ^
October 5 - Birmingham, AL - Fundraiser In-The-Round
October 17 - Edmund, OK - UCO Jazz Lab *
October 23 - Stephenville, TX - Keith Sykes Songwriter Weekend
October 28 - Nashville, TN - Country Music Hall of Fame
November 9 - Rockport, TX - The Rockport Songwriter Festival
November 22 - Nashville, TN - 3rd & Lindsley - Alzheimer's Benefit Show
* as part of Shawn Camp & Verlon Thompson: The Songs & Stories of Guy Clark
^ as part of The Earls of Leicester
