{"id":147251,"date":"2025-04-09T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-09T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/?p=147251"},"modified":"2025-04-08T10:29:58","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T17:29:58","slug":"cameron-knowlers-crk-bridges-early-american-guitar-styles-with-a-deeply-personal-touch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/cameron-knowlers-crk-bridges-early-american-guitar-styles-with-a-deeply-personal-touch\/","title":{"rendered":"Cameron Knowler\u2019s \u2018CRK\u2019 Bridges Early American Guitar Styles with a Deeply Personal Touch"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At the end of a long day at work, I found out on social media that the husband of a dear friend had died after a sudden stroke. Still in disbelief and struggling to convey my sympathy in a concise Facebook comment, I happened to put on Cameron Knowler\u2019s CRK<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was something deeply comforting about the gentle acoustic bubbling underneath the opening monologue, but the words seemed to be a scattered collage, randomly reassembled. By the end of \u201cChristmas in Yuma,\u201d even narrator Jack Kilmer seemed a bit weary. But like ice cream with sea salt and olive oil, something about the combination clicked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earthy juxtapositions abound on Knowler\u2019s second album. His grainy yet sun-splashed video for \u201cFelicity\u201d conjures a hazy memory of the \u201cdesert town gilded by silence\u201d\u2014Yuma, Arizona, pop. 96,000\u2014where Knowler spent the first decade of his life, a sharp contrast to the Houston suburb that\u2019s been his home ever since. An anti-normativism streak pulls him toward outsider artists, but the chops gained from earning an undergraduate degree in jazz guitar performance from the University of Houston occasionally surface. And though you might assume him to be a dusty cowboy, Knowler is a scholar and educator who makes great use of his master\u2019s in archival work. (His self-illustrated book Guitars Have Feelings Too<\/a> <\/em>views flatpicking as a continuation of the dance music that became bluegrass, not just virtuosic instrumental music.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"CRK,
CRK<\/em>, Cameron Knowler (Worried Songs)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

How does all this manifest in Knowler\u2019s music? He has lovingly absorbed an archive\u2019s worth of early American guitar styles, and it shows. The spaciousness in CRK<\/em>\u2014engineered by Jen Condos, Ian Doerr, Sean Sullivan, and Marshall Vore\u2014isn\u2019t just in the excellent mixing and mastering. The dynamic performances, which evoke words like sensitive, nuanced, restrained, and understated, hint at a disinterest in flash for its own sake. Listen to \u201cYuma Ferry,\u201d \u201cFarewell, Miss Forbes,\u201d and \u201cMule at the Wagon\u201d (with Robert Bowlin on guitar) and marvel at the clean technique and 19th-century vibe. Dig the interplay with Jordan Tice\u2019s rhythm guitar on \u201cOn a Widow\u2019s Outfit\u201d and how the somber \u201cMohave Runs the Colorado\u201d delicately, patiently climbs as if it\u2019ll never end\u2014until it does. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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