Shawn Camp

Shawn Camp began playing guitar as a small child, growing up outside Perryville, Arkansas. Mandolin and fiddle followed, all before he could drive. He remembers dreaming of melodies, waking up, and being able to play them. During that time, a legendary Arkansas fiddle player named Sis Draper encouraged him and took him seriously, and he never forgot. Years later when he was working with singer-songwriter Guy Clark, the memory of those times inspired their longtime collaboration, a song collection centered on the long-remembered fiddler. Clark, who passed away in 2016, included some of the emerging songs on his own albums, but after Clark’s death Camp went on to complete the project. The Ghost of Sis Draper conjures a sharply drawn world where 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.