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/>From very early on I connected with my musical gene, starting to play guitar at around 7 years of age. My gifted mother who helped bring me into this world was an amazing singer & actress.
From very early on I connected with my musical gene, starting to play guitar at around 7 years of age. My gifted mother who helped bring me into this world was an amazing singer & actress. However, she did not give me any guidance in that direction since she decided to let it all go for the sake of her children and family, consciously or unconsciously, I do not know.
But hearing my late mother sing as she did her household chores made an impression on me not known at the time. As a kid, I never really knew how much she gave up; it was much later after I discovered recordings of hers from before she started a family. I was in tears as I heard, for the first time, her spirit expressed on these old records. You can listen to her recordings on the June Harrison page.

That I served under the late Los Angeles Chorale Director Paul Salamunovich may sound good. He certainly did as he was performing some very intimate early morning masses in church alone, playing the organ with his polyphonic chord voicing along with his beautiful singing on special occasions. I was responsible for getting there on time, riding my bike in the dark, getting my costume on and….. serving mass as an Altar Boy. HAD YA’ GOING THERE FOR A SECOND… DIDN’T I? But this experience also added to my growth as a musician when, later in life, I pondered over what helped shape me.
Continuing my music career as a young lad, I remember walking through very narrow paths with an elderly French neighbor inside his old dimly lit house. The paths were lined with steep piles of newspapers and other items as we ventured through them looking for a misplaced Stradivarius.

The old French neighbor was the second violinist in the Warner Bros. Orchestra during the time when the late Felix Slatkin was first violinist. He mentored me in the tutelage capacity with tasks un-associated with music, such as yard work, but from time to time he would play a few violin tunes for me. Years later, I had the nerve to play some of my original instrumental compositions for him while seeing the wrinkled grimace of his facial expression. He said it sounded Chinese! You can stop here if you are getting a little hungry for Chinese…

The violinists of that era played not only classical music, they also played the Merry Melodies Bugs Bunny music, it was tight! Of course, not many musicians at the time wanted their name associated with the cartoons.

My late father George Campeau (who used to be an actor under contract at Warner Bros), told me that he, along with other artists, was ordered to enlist during WW2. As the First Sergeant, he received the assignment of running the Army Air Force Tactical Command Orchestra located at the Santa Ana Air Force Base. This put him in charge of some very famous musicians, including Mr. Slatkin. But what I am trying to convey as I am writing this BIOMINUTIAE, is my understanding of the osmosis that began with an impressionable kid and as the process continued, a gradual conscious or unconscious assimilation and absorption of ideas, knowledge, feelings, attitudes occurred that happens to most of us on different levels.

I remember dragging home old carpet remnants from a flooring shop’s trash heap and lining garage walls for band jamming and rehearsals. Years later, in the analog days of recording, I actually designed and built recording studios as a general contractor. Sound has always been between my ears, from the love of soundtrack music as a kid to some of the great classics, to popular music of the times, music has been my mentor, inspiring me to compose musical pieces with meaning and not only for entertainment value.

I have visited a few very magnificent sound studios, dreaming and asking myself when it was going to be my time, up to now I haven’t yet been able to afford such an environment. Because, at that time, I didn’t have the motivational drive to hit the road to play music at any cost, I was able to make a living as a builder, which gave me enough freedom and allowed me to compose music in the sanctuary and the privacy of my home studio.

My composition quest worked best for me if I did not dwell too long on perfecting the delivery of a current piece of music I was working on, by recording, or trying to market it in some way, shape or form. That seemed to take up too much time, which I’d rather spend to write even more new music. As a result, many a time I couldn’t remember what I wrote just a few months prior, which made fresh new ideas available. I broke the golden rule by not listening to popular music in the genre that I liked best, for fear of rewriting the music that was being broadcast. I know it’s weird, but it is a formula that works for me. I am always just working on some new music, designing and building it, much like I do as a builder.

Early in the 1980’s I tried to change some of that as you might hear in my albums FROM THE VAULT ( formerly REBOOT). 

It was my luck to meet Robert Thornburn back then, who ran a small home studio. I did about 45 one-day-slam-bam-thank-you-ma’am demos. He recorded me and produced what you can hear on the FROM THE VAULT albums. Even though it was never mastered, and with the levels and frequencies that don’t meet today’s standards, I thought the album would be fun to share with anyone who wants to listen. What did evolve from that time, was a continuing friendship with Robert to this day. He is a gifted multi-instrumentalist, and if you are ever in the region of Madrid, Spain, I am sure he and his wife, Princess Patricia de Madrid, could find you some help with recording in a studio near their castle nestled somewhere in the outskirts of Madrid. If you can’t make it there, you could always do a file share tune with him via the internet, https://www.linkedin.com/in/RobertThornburnMusic. We did one just for fun a while back, EPHEMERAL MOMENT, which can be found on my MANAGEABLE INTANGIBLES album.

In 1991 Robert also recorded the MONTAGE album together with my friend Doraine, the poet, in his living room directly to DAT…. Same audio challenges going by todays’ audio standards, but still relevant. My friend Joe Puerta of Ambrosia and Bruce Hornsby and the Range, showed his support for this project and played bass guitar on three tunes on the MONTAGE album (LISTEN, THE WORDING, LONGING).  By the time I tried to upload this project onto my computer from DAT, the tape had suffered some audio damage in a few spots that I had to work around in getting it digitized.

Since the lottery has avoided any monetary gain for me up to this point – I really don’t play it anyway – the other two albums, THE CLOSETORIUM CONSERVATORY OF COMPOSITIONS Volume 1, and MANAGEABLE INTANGIBLES have been recorded at home with me, yours truly, at the helm of all tasks involved. Writing, performing, recording and producing all the tunes. And of course, not mastered.

Well, needless to say, I feel some frustration having to do it this way (for obvious reasons). I had to decide if this “little” issue was going to continue to prevent me from getting my music out there and decided that it was not going to. I have always been in touch with the place in me that allows this love of music to proceed, that lets my spirit experience its surroundings, and express itself void of the belaboring multitudes of judgement that could have stopped it all.

Composition has been the longest, unplanned, and unexpected teacher for me, using both guitar and keyboards. It is noteworthy to say that without any prodigy skills, I learned how to play these instruments fairly well as composition ideas were steering me towards chord and melody creations.

I sincerely hope that you will enjoy this music as much as I do.

Thanks for listening!

James Campeau