TONE, COMING AND GOING

JIM CAMPILONGO IS A TELECASTER MASTER AND AN AUDIO ENTHUSIAST

- KEN MICALLEF

IN A 2014 PROFILE IN THE NEW YORKER, PAUL ELIE, AUTHOR OF THE BOOK REINVENTING BACH, WROTE, “THERE IT WAS AGAIN: THE STINGING TREBLE, THE SPOOKY OVERTONES, THE STRINGS SNAPPING AND BOOMING UNDER HIS HANDS—THE SOUND OF A TELE BEING PLAYED AS SKILLFULLY AND EXUBERANTLY AS IT CAN BE PLAYED.”

The musician in question was Jim Campilongo, lead guitarist for the Little Willies—the alt-country band that features Norah Jones on piano and vocals—and a player’s player whose trio has enjoyed residencies at New York’s The Knitting Factory, The Living Room, and Rockwood Music Hall. Indeed, on his 2018 album Live at the Rockwood Music Hall NYC, Campilongo can be heard bending, swinging, shaking, and caressing the strings of his 1959 Fender Telecaster to produce his distinctively rootsy, atmospheric style.

A native of San Francisco, Campilongo picked up the guitar when he was 9 and set about honing his craft, working mostly on the West Coast. (Not long after the release of his first album, Campilongo performed solo at Stereophile’s Hi-Fi ’97 show, at San Francisco’s St, Francis Hotel, sponsored by loudspeaker manufacturer NHT.) In 2001, he booked a tour that happened to kick off in New York City: “I played the Knitting Factory on September 10th, 2001. The next day was September 11. All the shows were canceled. I was stranded. I just wanted to get the hell outta here. I was probably one of the first people in America to fly after that. I went back to San Francisco and, as soon as my feet hit the ground, I knew it. I wanted to go back to New York. Six months later, I brought my Princeton amp and ’59 Telecaster, a suitcase, a laptop, and started from scratch.”