SUBMITTED REPORT

The Supple Folk Music series at Texas State University presents Nashville singer-songwriter Kate Campbell Feb. 5 as part of the Encore Performing Arts Series.

The event will take place at 7:30 p.m. in the Price Seniors Center, located at 222 W. San Antonio St. in San Marcos.

Campbell took up piano at age seven before switching to the guitar as a teenager during the folk-rock heyday of the 70s. Since then, over the course of 15 albums, she has written, recorded and performed almost exclusively on the acoustic guitar, with the exception of her 2012 release, 1000 Pound Machine, where she returned to piano. Her latest album is New Agrarians, released in December.

Since making her recording debut in 1995 with the heart-rending Songs From The Levee, Campbell has since put together a body of work matched only (perhaps) by Emmylou Harris in consistency, Lucinda Williams in terms of pure, wrenching, honest self-examination and self-revelation and no one for its sheer display of broad-based, intimate artfulness.

While doing so, she has managed to include the likes of Guy Clark, John Prine, Nanci Griffith, Maura O’Connell, Buddy Miller and the heart of the Muscle Shoals classic soul and R&B hit-making machine as both admirers and collaborators in her distinctly literate musical vision.

Her endearing, clear-water vocal delivery, eloquent gift for storytelling (which has drawn repeated comparisons to such bastions of the Southern writing tradition as Flannery O’Connor, Eudora Welty and William Faulkner) and easy command of a full-range of American music styles, have combined to earn Campbell recognition as a formidable talent by critics, musicians and a discerning public. Campbell’s Moonpie Dreams (1997) and Visions Of Plenty (1998) each garnered “Folk Album Of The Year” nominations from the Nashville Music Awards (as well as enthusiastic airplay by folk and Americana stations), while the southern-folk tinged Rosaryville (1999) and the gospel flavored Wandering Strange (2001) extended the upward-bound arc.

As the daughter of a Baptist preacher from Sledge, Miss., Campbell’s formative years were spent in the very core of the civil rights movement of the 1960′s, and the indelible experiences of those years have shaped her heart, character and convictions ever since. As a child of the South, her musical tastes were forged in the dampered, smoky fires of soul, R&B, Southern rock, country and folk music. Campbell’s music continues to inspire and enthuse a growing audience.

The Supple Folk Music Series is sponsored by CenturyLink. General admission seating is $15, with a $2 processing fee. Seating is limited. Ticket prices include a wine and cheese reception from 7-7:30 p.m.