Mount Ayr Record-News
Mount Ayr, Ringgold County, Iowa
Thursday, November 20, 2014, Page 1

Born and raised in Mount Ayr, Ken Campbell has been a travelling (sic) musician for 11 years and started playing music 15 years ago. Campbell got his interest in music after a motorcycle accident in the summer of 1999 that broke multiple bones and caused him to go deaf in his right ear. "I decided I needed to do things that I wanted to do and that's when I picked up a guitar," he said.

Campbell owns multiple stringed instruments from guitars to mandolins to violins. "Once you learn one stringed instrument they all are pretty easy to learn," he said.

Campbell does something unique, though. He creates his own stringed instruments such as three-, four- and five-stringed guitars and diddley bows. He makes the bodies from candy tins, license plates, cigar boxes and anything else that can be made into a guitar body. He makes the necks from different types of wood ranging from old rake handles to normal looking guitar necks. He uses old nuts and bolts for the nuts (the top of the neck that helps guide the strings on a stringed instrument) and he even makes his own pickups. A pickup is the electrical component that "picks up" the sound of the strings and delivers it through the amplifier.

Campbell's favorite instrument he has made is his license plate guitar. It is an Iowa plate from the year he was born with a wooden back that he made along with the neck.

The hardest part about making the instruments is the neck. He said the finish takes a lot of time as does measuring and gluing everything. He has recently finished 18 necks that will be put on guitars and added to his collection.

He first saw the idea on how to make a Diddley Bow on Youtube and decided to give it a try. He now makes his own instruments and has made 54 in total along with three bass guitars, a ukelele (sic) and two stomp boxes. A stomp box is an old crate with a license plate and pickup attached that makes it sound like a bass drum.

His favorite thing about playing music is the crowds. "There is nothing like playing for a crowd," he stated. He does solo shows but also plays in a band called "Beards of a Feather" as both he and his bandmate have beards. They have one album out entitled "It's All Good" on which Campbell wrote half the music. The album is available on iTunes, Spotify or Amazon.

You can generally find Campbell playing music at the Adams Street Espresso or at the Farmer's Market in Creston, and he says he also plays all over Southern Iowa. He has also played in Las Vegas, Branson and Kansas City.

Campbell plays his own original music but also plays anything from Hank Williams to Jimmy Hendrix. If you are curious and would like to listen, Campbell will be playing at Adams Street Espresso in Creston this Saturday, November 22.

Photographs courtesy of Mount Ayr Record-News

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, January of 2015