Shawn Camp To Be Inducted Into The Nashville Songwriters Hall Of Fame

(IVPR) While those in the Americana and bluegrass worlds have long known Shawn Camp as a modern songwriting luminary, it's come time for the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame to immortalize the Perryville, Arkansas, native as a member of their Class of 2026 alongside the likes of Lyle Lovett and Taylor Swift.

Having penned Garth Brooks' "Two Pina Coladas," Brooks & Dunn's "How Long Gone," George Strait's "River of Love," Josh Turner's "Would You Go with Me," and Blake Shelton's "Nobody but Me," Camp's contribution to the country music canon has stretched well into the mainstream, but it's his intimate storytelling that keeps him high on the list of your favorite songwriter's favorite songwriter. And if you want to judge a man by the company he keeps, well, Camp's collaboration-filled career speaks for itself.

Just last year, Camp released The Ghost of Sis Draper, a concept album that plays by its own rules, loosely calibrated by its authors, Camp and the late, great Guy Clark. The songs are tied to one another by characters, narratives, and kernels of old-time fiddle tunes, born from the pair's most revisited muse, a real-life traveling fiddle player who first showed up in Camp's world when he was just seven years old. 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."

Throughout The Ghost of Sis Draper-out now on Truly Handmade Records-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. 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!"

Fans can stream or purchase The Ghost of Sis Draper in its entirety today at this link. Camp will be officially inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame on October 26th at the Music City Center before heading to Rockport, Texas, on November 8th to honor his hero, mentor, and friend, Guy Clark.

Shawn Camp Announces Concept Album Co-Written With Guy Clark

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