Every album has a story.
The first time I recorded a multi-track song, I used two tape recorders. I’d record some chords to one, then use that as the accompaniment as I recorded the melody to the other. I’m sure it sounded awful, but a whole new world had opened up to me! My parents gave me my first proper 4-track tape recorder for Christmas in 1994. I’d never written a song before but I needed something to put on that tape, so I started threading together chords and melodies, layering one idea over the last, trying to tell a story.
I feel lucky to live during a time in which recording is so accessible. The 4-track has been replaced with a computer and I no longer mix down to my parents’ tape deck, but I still feel like a 14 year old kid with a blank canvas every time I begin a new project. And as technology continues to advance and more can be done in a home studio, starting out with the tape recorders taught me a valuable lesson: Work with what you have. Resources will always be limited, but creativity has no limits.
Discography
My albums:
- Tributary (2010)
- Life Is Loud (2007)
- Cameron Mizell (2004)
Albums as a sideman, producer, or collaborative efforts:
- Fear Of Flying (Stellar Ego, 2011)
credits: electric guitars, harmonica - Green-Wood (Little Grey Girlfriend, 2010)
credits: guitar - Sounds Like Snow (Be Still, 2009)
credits: arrangements, instruments, produced, mixed, mastered - Pour A Little Everything Else (Erika Lloyd, 2009)
credits: arrangements, instruments, produced, mixed, mastered - Closer To Christmas (Montgomery Bruce, 2009)
credits: arrangements, instruments, produced, mixed, mastered - On Your Back Porch (Lauren Zettler, 2009)
credits: arrangements, instruments, produced, mixed, mastered - Christmas From The Heartland (Dunham Van Durham, 2008)
credits: arrangements, instruments, produced, mixed, mastered - Simpler Times (Dunham Van Durham, 2008)
credits: compositions, instruments, produced, mixed, mastered - Bossa Noel (Montgomery Bruce, 2007)
credits: arrangements, instruments, produced, mixed, mastered - Follow Through (w/ Matt Ketteman, 2001)
credits: arrangements, instruments, produced, mixed, mastered
Tributary (July 20, 2010)
Tributary is my third full length album, and the first I feel is an honest effort to create a complete work. To me, this isn’t just a collection of songs. Each tune is a tip of the hat to one or more of the musicians that have influenced me since I began seriously studying the guitar, and music as a whole. That journey started with jazz, but took me to funk, soul, hip hop, blues, Americana, folk, rock, country, and back. I’ve recently realized most of the music I love rests on the shoulders of Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, and Charlie Christian.
Tributary is also a nod to St. Louis, Missouri, the town where I was born and raised. The city has an incredibly rich cultural history, largely because its location on the Mississippi and Missouri rivers allowed it to become the second largest port in the US during the mid 19th Century. Major travel routes that criss-cross the country have always stopped through St. Louis, bringing many musicians, artists, and writers to and from the city–not to mention the many who are from the area, including Miles Davis, Grant Green, and Chuck Berry. St. Louis has always been a music town, closely linked with jazz, blues, and rock & roll. However, there’s no defining genre associated to the city, like Chicago blues or Memphis soul, instead the music of St. Louis is very much a melting pot of styles from everywhere else–much like a musician funneling a wide range of influences into a personal sound.
I wrote the music for Tributary gradually during a two year period, introducing the tunes to Brad and Kenneth one at a time over the course of many gigs. The three of us broke them in and exposed the weak spots, giving me a chance to adjust the arrangements until they felt natural. The long incubation period also granted me time to realize my larger vision of composing tunes that fit together, borrow from each other, and hopefully paint a bigger picture for the listener.
Part of the bigger picture, for me at least, was to incorporate some of the sounds, textures, and people I’ve worked with in my other musical outlets. After two days of tracking the trio, I brought the tracks home and added some additional instrumentation. I also enlisted the help of two very talented singers to add some background vocals. Erika Lloyd, who Brad, Kenneth and I all play with in the band Little Grey Girlfriend, and Lauren Zettler, a singer/songwriter who I’ve been writing, recording, and touring with since ‘08, contributed layered vocals on one track each. The sum of these parts has made Tributary truly representative of the last several years of my overall creative output.
Credits:
Cameron Mizell – electric and acoustic guitars, glockenspiel
Brad Whiteley – Hammond B3 organ, synth bass, additional keyboards
Kenneth Salters – drums
with:
Erika Lloyd – vocals on Ghost Town
Lauren Zettler – vocals on The Return
Produced by Cameron Mizell. Recorded by Eric Heveron-Smith at Seaside Lounge Studios in Brooklyn, NY on September 17 and 18, 2009. Editing and additional recording by Cameron Mizell. Mixed by Eric Heveron-Smith and Cameron Mizell. Mastered by Kevin Reeves at Universal Mastering Studios-East. Design by Philip Manning. Photography by Lauren Farmer.
Tributary is available at: iTunes // Bandcamp // Amazon
Life Is Loud (2007)
After moving to New York in 2004, I made a goal to form a new band and start working on a new album within two years. That task proved to be more challenging than I thought–my wife and I moved to the city with no jobs and no savings. I don’t think we had much of a plan beyond living in New York, where we both felt we could reach for bigger and better things (as Frank Sinatra used to sing…).
Ten months passed between my last gig in Indiana to my first gig in NYC, and during the first five months I hardly even picked up my guitar. I was busy trying to make ends meet by selling sofa beds and office supplies! My priorities felt like they’d been turned upside down. Once I started playing again, the songs on Life Is Loud began to materialize. Tunes like “Soulfunksticat” and “The Whipper” were edgier and more aggressive than the music I’d previously written. The title for the album came to me on the subway, a couple weeks after we finished recording. After the album was released, I was interviewed and explained the meaning behind the title:
“I’m constantly bombarded by sound in NYC; there is noise here all the time. The title of the CD, Life Is Loud, represents both the literal audible noise, and also all the figurative noise going through my head in this hyped-up, iPodded, smart phone, multitasking society–both of which are amplified in a crowded city like New York. Completing this album amongst all the noise turned out to be a big endeavor, so Life Is Loud just sort of hit me as a kind of Hemingway-esque statement of how the music I make has changed since coming to New York.”
Credits:
Cameron Mizell – Guitar, Flex-a-tone, sleigh bells
Brad Whiteley – Hammond B3 and C2 organs, Fender Rhodes, Moog Prodigy, ES1 synth bass, toy piano
Mike Fortune – Drums
Produced by Cameron Mizell. Engineered, mixed, and co-produced by Rob Fillmore at the Cutting Room Studios in New York on June 14, 2006 (3, 4, 8, 11, 13), and Mission Sound Recording in Brooklyn on April 29, 2007 (1, 2, 5-7, 9, 10, 12). Mastered by Kevin Reeves at Universal Mastering Studios-East. Photography by Rob Mizell. Design by Philip Manning.
Life Is Loud is available at: iTunes // Bandcamp // Amazon
Cameron Mizell (2004)
While in Bloomington, Indiana, I gigged with two bands. The first was a straight-ahead jazz trio. The other was an 8-piece funk band. One part of me knew that the trio setting would challenge me to grow as a musician. For a guitarist, playing with just a bassist and drummer forces you to use space wisely. You don’t want to overplay, but you also don’t have any other harmonic instruments such as another guitar or piano to fall back on. Perhaps the 8-piece band was to compensate for the sparse surroundings of the trio. The larger band also provided me with a chance to arrange for a small horn section. The real reward for a composer is hearing a group of musicians play your music, and this group motivated me to experiment with my ideas.
Before Indiana, I was living in Denton, Texas studying jazz at UNT. I learned a lot about jazz, but I also got turned on to underground hip hop by my roommates. That led me to go deeper into funk music, especially the music of James Brown. The move to Indiana gave me a clean slate as a musician–nobody knew what I sounded like as a college freshman–and somehow this gave me the confidence to really play out and start developing my sound.
Initially, I recorded my two bands simply to document the music I’d been playing in Indiana before moving to New York. But the recordings came out well, we were all happy with the performance and the sound quality, so I turned it into my first album. I hoped that, at the very least, it would give me something to hand to people in New York as I tried to book gigs. To my surprise, people wanted to buy it. The money I made from this album provided much of the financial backing I needed for my future projects, and it continues to sell today. I’ve come a long way as a musician since this album, but it represents a time in my development where I grew leaps and bounds. I still crack a smile and remember my friends from Bloomington everytime I hear the downbeat of “Eddie’s Theme.”
Credits:
Cameron Mizell – Guitar
Justin Shaw – Drums
Matt Holman – Trumpet and flugelhorn
Matt Cashdollar – Tenor saxophone
Spencer Mahoney – Baritone saxophone
Brad Whiteley – Keyboards
Ben Handel – Percussion
Joel Pontius – Bass (1-8)
Jesse Wittman – Bass (9-12)
Tracks 1-8 recorded live by Dewayne Schunn on May 9, 2004. Tracks 9-12 recorded by Will Loy on May 4, 2004. Recorded in Bloomington, Indiana. Photography and layout by Rob Mizell.
Cameron Mizell is available at: iTunes // Bandcamp // Amazon
Fear Of Flying (2011)
Stellar Ego
Stellar Ego is a rock band led by New Jersey singer/songwriter Guy Prandstatter. I got the call from bassist Ben Kogan to join the band late in the summer of 2010. I didn’t have too many rock gigs coming my way, so I was really excited about this opportunity. This was the kind of music I’d try to play when I was sitting in my room as a 12 year old. Stellar Ego was a chance for me to get back to my roots!
After a few months of rehearsals and some gigs under my belt, we started recording at drummer Danny Wolf’s studio. We did a handful of full band sessions at Danny’s before Guy and I did most of the overdubs in our respective homes (sorry, neighbors). I even got to play blues harp on “Judgement Day,” something I’ve been wanting to do since I started transcribing Junior Wells, usually while sitting in Brooklyn traffic jams! Then we’d send our tracks to Danny, who did an incredible job of putting it all together to make a rockin’ album.
Before I joined the band, Guy, Ben, and Danny had been playing together for about a year. Guy puts a lot of heart into his songwriting and is a great rock singer. Ben and Danny have been playing together for years and are one of the best bassist/drummer combinations I’ve played with. These guys set the bar high, and I believe it shows on this recording. I’ve had a blast working on this project.
Credits:
Guy Prandstatter – vocals, acoustic guitar
Ben Kogan – bass, keyboards, backing vocals
Cameron Mizell – electric guitars, harmonica
Danny Wolf – drums, percussion, backing vocals
With:
Andrew Johns – keyboards (3, 6, 7, 8)
Zen Thomas – electric guitar intro (4)
All lyrics and melodies by Guy Prandstatter
Music by Guy Prandstatter and Stellar Ego
(p) & (c) gprandstattermusic (ASCAP)
Produced by Guy Prandstatter, Danny Wolf, and Stellar Ego
Recorded, mixed and mastered by Danny Wolf at ManEatWolf Studios, Brooklyn, NY
Fear Of Flying is available at: Bandcamp
Green-Wood (2010)
Little Grey Girlfriend
Little Grey Girlfriend is the brainchild of Erika Lloyd and Brad Whiteley, two of my close friends and longtime musical collaborators. LGG began as a long distance project between the two of them while Brad was working as a pianist on a cruise ship and Erika was living in Brooklyn. Once Brad got off the ship, they put a band together and started playing NYC.
The line up has gradually changed, and I was not a part of the band until late 2009. As a fan of their music from the beginning I was already familiar with their material and Erika’s songwriting. That made it easy for me to slide in on guitar, even though they’d never had a guitarist before. Not to mention I’ve worked with them in other projects, Brad being the keyboardist in my trio for many years, and Erika and I recorded Pour A Little Everything Else together in 2009.
Around the time I joined, the two of them began recording this EP in their apartment, which overlooks the famous Green-Wood cemetary in Brooklyn. Their railroad style apartment is actually a great space to record–a boxy kitchen with high ceilings, a living room with a grand piano, and even a long, narrow bathroom for capturing natural ambiance.
The Green-Wood EP has more in common with their self-titled debut than their more recent full length, Cells Planets, in that it uses electronic drum beats and synthesizers. However, the use of grand piano, guitar, and cello give it deeper textures and richer harmonics than typical electronica.
I’m thrilled to be a part of this band, and proud to be a part of this recording. Learn more about Little Grey Girlfriend at their website: littlegreygirlfriend.com
Credits:
Erika Lloyd – Vocals, Piano, Drum Programming
Brad Whiteley – Piano, Synth, Drum Programming
Cameron Mizell – Guitar
Caleigh Drane – Cello
Album Artwork: Erika Lloyd. Recorded, Mixed, and Mastered by Brad Whiteley & Erika Lloyd of Half Full Records
Green-Wood is available at: iTunes // Bandcamp
Sounds Like Snow (2009)
Be Still
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In the summer after recording On Your Back Porch, Lauren Zettler and I were gearing up for a small Midwest tour. At this point we’d been working together for about a year, pretty much focusing on the same material, trying to make our performances as tight as possible. We both felt the need to change things up a little so we wouldn’t burn out. Since the recording process for On Your Back Porch was a great catalyst for creativity, we decided to start a studio side project–something that would allow us to have fun and record whatever we felt like without worrying how it would translate to the stage, or whether the sound didn’t fit what we were trying to do with Lauren’s music.
That’s how Be Still was conceived. It’s sort of a band within a band.
We decided to record a Christmas album, for a few reasons. First, it’s easy. The songs are already written (save the title track, an original by Lauren), all we have to do is play them. Second, it’s challenging. There are thousands of Christmas albums out there, so we had to come up with original arrangements. Third, people tend to either love or hate Christmas music. I used to hate it, but through a project like this I found a new appreciation of each song. Hopefully this album turns people’s ear and they hear the songs again for the first time. And last but not least, in the wide world of the internet, people tend to seek out Christmas music more than original music by artists they haven’t heard of. This album is one way to lead them to more of our work.
Under the cloak of a different moniker, we were free to experiment with different sounds. For example, since we both play guitar, all of our music is rather guitar-centric. But on a track like “Silent Night,” we used harmonium and glockenspiel as a starting point. As a contrast, songs like “Christmas Time Is Here” or “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” rely heavily on a single guitar part, and I approached the accompaniment much like I would backing a jazz singer. We also reharmonized many of these tunes. In some cases that meant simplifying jazz chord changes to make the song sound more like singer-songwriter fare, “Christmas Time Is Here” is a good example of that, and other times it meant doing something unconventional, such as the pedal tone and dissonant harmonies on “I’ll Be Home For Christmas.”
Finally, the album would be nothing without Lauren’s vocal, which is a perfect fit for the nostalgia conjured by every lyric. We also used her voice as another instrument, creating ethereal vocal pads in the background on many tunes. There’s no way we could pull that off live, but as Be Still, we didn’t have those limitations.
All in all we had a great time recording this one and learned a lot. Who knows, maybe this will become one of your favorite holiday albums!
Credits:
Lauren Zettler – vocals, acoustic guitar, harmonium, glockenspiel
Cameron Mizell – electric guitar, acoustic guitar, mandolin, ukulele, harmonium, glockenspiel, effects
With special guest Kait Lawson – Vocals (9)
All songs by their respective writers. Reharmonized and arranged by Cameron Mizell and Lauren Zettler.
Produced, recorded, mixed, and mastered by Cameron Mizell in Brooklyn, New York in August and September 2009.
Sounds Like Snow is available at: iTunes // CD Baby
Pour A Little Everything Else (2009)
w/ Erika Lloyd
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Erika Lloyd and I met in a music theory class at Indiana University. It turned out she also lived about a block from me, so we started hanging out and playing music together from time to time. She moved to NYC about a year after my wife and I did, and along with her boyfriend (and organ player in my trio) Brad Whiteley, has become one of our best friends in the city. It was only natural that we’d record an album together.
Erika writes music with Brad for their band Little Grey Girlfriend, so we wanted to do something different. A covers album seemed like a great place to start. Erika had a list of covers she’d performed with Little Grey Girlfriend that gave us our first few options. Beyond that, she chose songs that spanned her tastes in pop music, from Joni Mitchell to the Cocteau Twins.
When we recorded this album, Little Grey Girlfriend didn’t have a guitar player, so working with me was already going to be a change of pace for Erika. On one of the first tracks we recorded, I doubled the acoustic guitar part by strumming with the fleshy part of my thumb to get a mellower, darker sound. Erika’s reaction was priceless, “I never realized how much is going on with a guitar, all the harmonics and overtones…”
Likewise, working with Erika was a great experience for me. As a trained classical singer, she has incredible range and control over her voice, a very distinct vibrato, and she shows up prepared. I’m always ready to work, but her organization for this project almost made me feel like an amateur. Her vision for each track was inspiring, and it pushed me to create the best guitar sounds behind her vocal.
Credits:
Erika Lloyd – Vocals
Cameron Mizell – Guitars and all other instruments
Produced, recorded, mixed and mastered by Cameron Mizell with Erika Lloyd in Brooklyn, NY from April to June, 2009; Except “Fool On The Hill” recorded and mixed by Erika Lloyd and Brad Whiteley.
Pour A Little Everything Else is available at: iTunes // CD Baby.
On Your Back Porch (2009)
Lauren Zettler
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I first saw Lauren Zettler perform sometime in late 2007. She had a guitarist on stage with her, and after the show she asked me what I thought. I remember thinking she was great, but the guitarist did nothing for her music. He didn’t take away from it, but he definitely wasn’t adding anything. I wasn’t sure why he was on stage. I remember this, because 6 months later Lauren asked me if I’d play a couple shows with her. Time to put my money where my mouth is.
Lauren is the type of songwriter that continually impresses me each time we work together. At our first rehearsal, she taught me her songs material from her first EP Call Me Out, and then played a new song, “Call Your Bluff.” At that point the gig changed for me. To me, this song showed a new level of maturity in her song writing. It was clear that she put a lot of thought and effort into every bit of her music. It’d be a crime for me to do anything less.
A month later, in August of 2008, Lauren came to my apartment in Brooklyn and we recorded “Small Town Love” for a contest. We continued recording at whatever rate new songs were completed. The arrangements grew from the recording process. It was incredibly organic and relaxed.
I’d done a number of recordings with my meager home studio rig before this one, but the feeling from that first rehearsal carried over into the recording and production process. I felt like I needed to step up my game. I’m very proud of the quality on this album and feel like the playing and production serves Lauren’s music well. I hope you agree!
Credits:
Lauren Zettler – Vocals, acoustic guitar
Cameron Mizell – Electric and acoustic guitars, mandolin, harmonica, and other random instruments including but not limited to cider jug and slide ukulele
Produced recorded, mixed, and mastered by Cameron Mizell in Brooklyn, New York from August 2008 to February 2009.
On Your Back Porch is available at: iTunes // Amazon
Simpler Times (2008)
Dunham Van Durham
One day I was hanging out with friends Russell Holland and Drew Pitcher in their apartment, listening to records and playing a little guitar. We started playing the vamp at the end of James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain” and it gradually morphed into something else. Drew started playing some blues harmonica over the three bar phrase Russell and I were strumming, and it felt good. I pulled out my mobile recording rig, and we proceeded to write and record “Old Sardis Road” start to finish in one sitting.
Over the next several months we got together for similar sessions. Some days we started with nothing, other times one of us would have some pieces of melody for inspiration. The entire recording was made with one microphone and whatever acoustic instruments were at our disposal: guitars, mandolin, banjo, harmonicas, harmonium, ukulele, accordion, clarinet, tambourine, jug, we even played an old baking pan with a tin can filled with BBs (on “The Flood”). The compositions are simply our brand of Americana music, created with a combination of restraint and beer (often inversely proportioned).
The name, Dunham Van Durham, was just for fun. Let’s face it, when you listen to this music, you don’t want to picture three twenty-somethings in a Brooklyn apartment drinking Dogfish Head brews while kids from the projects play handball outside the window. So we opted for a pseudonym that sounded more like the music–old souls, chewing tobacco, front porches, and jam sessions.
Credits:
Junior Van Durham – Acoustic guitar, 12-string guitar, slide guitar, banjo, mandolin, ukulele, tin can, baking pan
Roland Van Durham – Acoustic guitar, 12-string guitar, slide guitar, banjo, mandolin, accordion, tambourine, harmonium
Lyman Van Durham – Harmonica, clarinet, claps, foot tapping, yelps
Recorded, mixed and mastered by Cameron Mizell in Brooklyn, NY from March to June, 2008.
Simpler Times is available at: iTunes // Amazon // Bandcamp
Follow Through (2001)
w/ Matt Ketteman
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Matt Ketteman has been one of my best friends since high school. He sang in a couple of my bands, but most of the time we’d just sit around with our friends and play songs. Whenever we got together, we made sure there was a guitar nearby.
We went to different colleges, and so we only saw each other during holidays or the summer. In the summer of 2001 we were at my parents house watching The Big Lebowski (drinking White Russians, of course) and realized that this would probably be the last summer we were both in St. Louis. Maybe it was the drinks talking, but we immediately decided to record some of the songs we’d been playing together for the last few years.
There was very little thought put into deciding our repertoire. We played any song that we liked, any song that was an inside joke with our friends, or any song that our girlfriends liked. When we decided to record, we thought it’d be a good idea to record the songs our girlfriends liked.
We recorded eight songs in my parents basement that week while they were out of town. After returning to school the following semester, I mostly forgot about the recordings. But several years later, we dusted the CD, obtained licenses for the cover songs, and in 2007, the album was released digitally.
Credits:
Matt Ketteman – Vocals
Cameron Mizell – Guitars
Recorded by Matt Ketteman and Cameron Mizell in St. Louis, Missouri during the summer of 2001. Released in February, 2007. Cover image photography by Rob Mizell.
Follow Through is available at: iTunes // CD Baby // Amazon
