Woodyfest 2018: Chloe-Beth

Young Singer-Songwriter Returns to Woodyfest

Let’s Let’s just [Sidenote: This is the four­teenth fea­ture in our ongo­ing cov­er­age of Woodyfest 2018. It fea­tures Edid singer-song­writer Chloe-Beth Campbell.] get it out of the way. Chloe-Beth Campbell (just “Chloe-Beth” when she per­forms) is tiny. Just shy of 4′11″ and weigh­ing 110 pounds, she usu­ally has to lower the micro­phone if she’s fol­low­ing another musi­cian. And every arti­cle you’re going to read about her from today until she’s hold­ing her sec­ond Grammy in twenty years is going to start The petite singer from Oklahoma […], which is entirely besides the point.

In the imme­di­ate future, most of what’s writ­ten about her will prob­a­bly men­tion her youth. Most likely, there will be some­thing about the voice of an old soul. Writers will pro­claim aston­ish­ment that such a young per­son can express wis­dom, as if young peo­ple can’t be wise. [Sidenote: There’s wis­dom in Chloe-Beth’s songs, but some of them are also under­stand­ably raw and unpol­ished — that’s okay; she’s still hon­ing her craft. She may not yet pos­sess yogic wis­dom, but if she keeps at it she’ll be writ­ing songs that approach the lyri­cism and sub­tlety of another great song­writer to come out of Enid, Brad Fielder. If you dig deep into his cat­a­logue you’ll see some youth­ful indis­cre­tion — but also wild exper­i­men­ta­tion and fear­less curios­ity — that gives only a hint at the thought­ful song­writer he’s become. We expect the same of Chloe-Beth.] It’s true, Chloe-Beth gave her first Woodyfest show­case last year, when she was sev­en­teen. She’s eigh­teen now. That’s also besides the point.

This is the point: Chloe-Beth writes songs that span the deeply per­sonal and the uni­ver­sal, in a style that bor­rows freely from coun­try, folk, and pop music. When per­form­ing cov­ers she puts her own stamp on the mate­r­ial. She has a strong, well-tuned instru­ment — her voice is pleas­ant and her tech­nique more than up to the task. When she sings, you can’t help but reflect her wide, open smile on your own grin­ning face.

Her artist bio says she grew up musi­cal, with a love of song instilled in her by her mother at a young age. It shows.

You can check out her upcom­ing shows on her tour page.

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