Roland Van Campenhout Segovia At The Wheel (CD)

(Meyer Records) 12 tracks, digipack incl. 6-page booklet

Anyone who listens to the new album “Segovia At The Wheel” (release date: 08.08.2025) by Belgian artist Roland Van Campenhout from the very beginning will feel like the “hobo” sung about in the opening song. The tracks clatter below us in a monotonous, even rhythm, the most diverse landscapes pass by leisurely and regularly, day turns into night and then day again. In the middle of it all is the lonely, homeless, permanent traveler, without a destination, but with the firm intention of being “on the road” and shaping his strange existence in this way. 

Roland Van Campenhout, the “eternal hobo”, turns 81 on July 25th and the very first notes of the 12-song kalaidoscope “Segovia At The Wheels” immerse the listener in the enchanted atmosphere of its creator. The Belgian master guitarist and singer creates an atmosphere of sound that is as sparse as it is mysterious, not unlike Ry Cooder's soundtrack of the century for the Wim Wenders film “Paris, Texas”. But it also evokes associations with Captain Beefheart, the master songwriter Tom Waits and the shaman Dr. John. 

Roland Van Campenhout is a living legend, the archetype for an almost extinct breed of artist - that of the sound magician, firmly rooted in blues and folk, but at the same time open to pretty much all genres. As a teenager - inspired by author Jack Kerouac's beatnik classic “On The Road” as a philosophy of life - he belonged to a skiffle combo. From the end of the 1960s, the man with the catweazle moustache turned increasingly to the blues, played for a while in Rory Gallagher's band and had a rendezvous with Tim Hardin and Leo Kottke. From 2000, his work led to collaborations with the much younger Belgian crossover artists Sioen and Helmut Lotti.

The artist sees himself in the tradition of the “beatniks”, i.e. authors and their Gesamtkunstwerke such as Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg or William S. Burroughs. He defines his work as “mantra blues with poetic verses” or alternatively as “electronic voodoo swamp with haiku lyrics”. The whole thing is independent and cross-genre - psychedelic tones, jazz à la John Coltrane, the Far East and North Africa join the blues in the permanent focus. 

With “Segovia At The Wheel”, however, the charismatic musician is back to himself and on his own mission. And even if the current songs come from a “non-existent country” - the trip to this imaginary world is definitely worthwhile. “There's a lot of humor in each of the new tracks,” laughs Van Campenhout. "On the other hand, the album also describes the story of my musical development. Because I originally come from jazz. And of course from folk sounds à la Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie or Joni Mitchell. On the other hand, I've been traveling all over the planet for decades. I meet tons of people, make friends, make music together with this or that person. So it's inevitable that my sound changes again and again. It would be a terribly boring thing if I stayed stuck to one sound. I'm not interested in creative stagnation."

Although Roland Van Campenhout's father died when the boy was just five, “my dad influenced me in my work”, the Belgian is firmly convinced. "He was a jazz musician, just like my grandpa. I am absolutely certain that they both had and still have an influence on my music." 

Ultimately, however, the decisive factor is that “I've always traveled a lot, being on the road has taken me to the most diverse countries and continents,” enthuses the Fleming, "this fact has never changed. While I was on the road, I was jamming non-stop. My work thrives on this discontinuity, curiosity and openness. Anyone who travels through the world with open eyes and ears and, above all, soul, is given an ever-expanding range of impressions as if by magic. These must then be processed in your own songs." Wonderfully realized once again on a dozen new compositions that seem wonderfully familiar, especially in their exoticism.