Guyanese-born singer-songwriter David Campbell, who died in Vancouver on May 21 at age 91, was part of an Indigenous artistic renaissance in Canada in the 1970s and 80s, creating empowering songs of liberation and giving voice to the struggles of the Indigenous people of the Americas. The multitalented Arawak artist was beloved for his song Pretty Brown, the title track from his 1977 album.
"Pretty Brown was my anthem for 25 years," said former CBC and Vision TV broadcaster Rita Deverell, a Governor-General's Award recipient and Lakehead University chancellor, who recalled being enthralled by the song when she interviewed Mr. Campbell. "From the moment David sang it, Pretty Brown gave me courage and joy. … It was written about a young Indigenous woman, a 'reservation child' who comes to the city. But David's song worked perfectly for me, a young Black woman, immigrant to Canada, navigating the racism and sexism of the media industry. It was crucial to we brown women."
Monique Diabo, a family friend of Mr. Campbell, had a similarly strong affinity for Pretty Brown. "The song helps us to love our brown skin," she said. "If you are a woman with brown skin you are often seen as a target. When he wrote that he spoke to our beauty."
A Multifaceted Artist
In addition to performing for audiences in this country and elsewhere in the Americas and Europe during his long career, Mr. Campbell published collections of his writing and was an accomplished painter and photographer. In the final phase of his career, he became a skilled practitioner of digital media and created an extensive online archive of his works.
David Damian Campbell was born in the Pomeroon region of Guyana on Feb. 20, 1935. He was raised by his father, Steven Campbell, the first Indigenous Guyanese elected to parliament, and his mother, Umbelina Campbell (née Da Silva). Their home was replete with discussion about culture and politics, and he grew up surrounded by music. Some of the songs he wrote evoke the lands and waters of the region where he was born.
He first moved to Toronto in the 1960s, fuelled by his curiosity about the world. He studied radio and television arts and pursued his interest in guitar. "David Campbell came to Canada with respect, love, humility and in the spirit of unity," said Brian Wright-McLeod, an Indigenous music journalist and professor of Indigenous Media Studies at York University in Toronto. During the course of his lifetime, the peripatetic Mr. Campbell also lived in England and Sweden, on Manitoulin Island and finally in Vancouver.
Musical Journey and Activism
Mr. Campbell emerged as a folk singer during his UK sojourn, opening for the American folk legend Tom Paxton at Royal Albert Hall in 1965. He also recorded albums with various British labels including David Campbell (1966), Young Blood (1967), Mr. Everywhere (1969) and Sun Wheel (1972). But he became wary of corporate music production. When he returned to Toronto in the early 1970s, he became a fixture at the city's music venues featuring Indigenous artists, and released his album Through Arawak Eyes in 1974.
Actor, playwright and dramaturg Monique Mojica recalls that Mr. Campbell had a "voice as smooth as butter. It was still a time when a performer with just a guitar was powerful. It was before sex, drugs and rock and roll. He was at the centre of that." With his international background, Ms. Mojica says, Mr. Campbell was "a bridge-builder" instrumental in bringing people together.
By the 1980s, Mr. Campbell was a central figure in the groundbreaking Indigenous Peoples Theatre Celebration which took place in both Toronto and Peterborough, Ont. The events presented Indigenous artists of the Americas as well as performers from Indigenous communities elsewhere. Mr. Campbell joined artists such as the actor and singer Gary Farmer; playwright, author and musician Tomson Highway; dancer René Highway; and Ms. Mojica. They would all soon gain recognition for their groundbreaking work.
Mr. Campbell's music, "captured our hearts as Indigenous people and built pride in ourselves back when we needed it," Mr. Farmer said. "He was from a part of the world we knew nothing about. It was amazing to hear about the Arawak people."
DIY Trailblazer and Community Builder
Fed up with record companies and publishing houses, Mr. Campbell was a DIY trailblazer of sorts, releasing his own recordings and writings. The musician buttressed that emerging community by setting up open mic nights at a Toronto club called the Trojan Horse. It became a hub for Indigenous artists. As a performer, Mr. Campbell played folk festivals such as Mariposa and Indigenous gatherings all over Canada.
"I remember older Indigenous women at the North Bay Indian Friendship Centre who thought the world of him with a giddiness like he was a superstar," Mr. Wright-McLeod said when he recalled seeing Mr. Campbell in his 1980s prime. When Mr. Campbell befriended Ms. Diabo's family, which has Taino-Cuban-Mohawk-Cree roots, she became his honorary niece. Over the decades of their friendship, she found Mr. Campbell, "Very welcoming. He felt like home."
Some of his songs have a Calypso or Latino lilt, such as Deep In The Jungle, which he wrote for Ms. Diabo. He lived for a time on Ontario's Manitoulin Island, during which Mr. Campbell was inspired to write Manitoulin, a lyrical ode to the crystal waters and clear blue skies of a place he called an "Ojibway paradise."
Later Years and Legacy
By the mid-1980s, he had settled in Vancouver. The city became his home and refuge. In a 2011 interview on EcoVillage TV, he said of his adopted home, "mountains meeting with the ocean for me is the ultimate combination of an earth environment to live in. Those mountains give me so much consolation, so much help just about every day of my life. In my imperfect way I walk in beauty. ... Being open to beauty for me is a balancing thing to counteract the horrors that are in our world."
Loretta Sarah Todd, a Vancouver-based Cree and Métis filmmaker and producer, saw Mr. Campbell appear in public. "So many grew up with his song Pretty Brown and still do today. It is a song of intergenerational kindness. He was known as an activist as well as a musician. But he was a poet at heart who imagined a good life for Indigenous people. And his songs reflect that love and hope." Tomson Highway called Pretty Brown a charming song, adding, "Decades later, I still sing it to myself whenever the spirit moves me."
When B.C.'s Aboriginal Writers Collective Westcoast approached Mr. Campbell about including his writing in an anthology, group co-founder Russell Wallace was struck by Mr. Campbell's fierce independence. "He looked at our Call for Submission paper and pointed to the word 'submission,'" recalled Mr. Wallace, a musician from B.C.'s Lil'wat Nation. "He said his work does not do that. We were a bit perplexed. He said that his work does not submit to anyone for approval. He said an Indigenous artist should never submit and never have to jump through hoops to be included. Alas, we did not get anything from Mr. Campbell but this important teaching: Our Indigenous arts community needs to stop all the gatekeeping and start supporting Indigenous artists and communities."
Fed up with record companies and publishing houses, Mr. Campbell was a DIY trailblazer of sorts, releasing his own recordings and writings. He produced albums, hired session musicians, designed covers and peddled his own recordings and publications. Mr. Campbell described himself as a "fierce artist" to Kevin Howes, a producer, DJ and music archivist. Mr. Howes met Mr. Campbell at a Vancouver poetry reading in 2010. "He was staunchly independent. He had a technological savviness which may have originated with his media studies," Mr. Howes said. In 2015, as curator of the Grammy-nominated collection Native North America (Vol. 1): Aboriginal Folk, Rock, and Country 1966–1985, Mr. Howes included songs by Mr. Campbell. "As a settler, I was introduced to Native North America by the great songs of people like David Campbell."
Mr. Campbell concluded that 2011 interview by saying, "I'm an eternal optimist and I believe we human beings have the potential to become some day the beautiful magical, powerful, laughing, living creatures that we were always meant to be."
He received the Wordsworth McAndrew Award in 2003 from the Guyana Folk Festival for his many contributions to Guyanese culture. Mr. Campbell leaves his daughter, Noona Dawn Campbell, born during a brief marriage that ended many years ago. He named his independent record label Noona Music.
