Quality Americana

Los Angeles based songwriter Ted Russell Kamp released his latest single “High Desert Fever” Wednesday, from his upcoming album California Sun.

“I started writing the song almost ten years ago,” Ted Russell Kamp said about his new single “High Desert Fever.” The song, co-written by Ted Wulfers, spotlights the atmosphere and mythology around Joshua Tree National Park. “The way people in Texas talk about Marfa,” Kamp said, “that’s the way L.A. people talk about Pioneertown.”

Kamp said that many L.A. rock musicians, including the Eagles and the Byrds, would go to Joshua Tree seeking a spiritual revelation and a break from touring. “Gram Parsons used to go out there a lot,” Kamp said. “He died at the Joshua Tree (Inn).” 

The video shows a playful Kamp dancing and singing in the desert as scenes from a rural highway cut in. We see scenes from the band and old western saloons.

The song also looks at Kamp’s journey as a working musician in L.A. and the influences that landed him there in the first place. Artists like Jackson Brown, Los Lobos and Dwight Yokam were a huge draw and Hollywood has its own mystic that moves the city.

“It’s just this wonderful tiny town with hippies, and people getting off the grid, and artists,” Kamp said. “It’s just very freeing and wonderful to get out of the city. You see a million stars.”

Kamp wanted to re-write the song with Wulfers after all these years and really touch on some personal moments he experienced in the high desert. It’s a fast ramblin’ traveling song with a hint of Leon Russell. 

“It captures that energy,” Kamp said. “The music barely changed at all. Sometimes it really is just a twist in the concept.”

More information on Ted Russell Kamp can be found here.

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