Stacy Dean Campbell

Stacy Dean Campbell has spent nearly four decades telling American stories — in songs, novels, film and television.

He cut his musical teeth on diesel fumes in the back of a tour bus. His father was a touring musician on the Southern gospel circuit in the late sixties, and that foundation stayed in everything he made afterwards. A move to Nashville in the nineties put him among the ranks as a staff songwriter for Sony/Tree Music Publishing, apprenticing under some of the most legendary songwriters in American music. A spot on the Columbia Records roster followed, alongside Willie Nelson, Tammy Wynette and The Highwaymen, where he placed four singles on the Billboard charts. His album Ashes of Old Love, on Warner Bros., reached No. 3 on the Americana chart.

Campbell later brought that same interest in people, place and American culture to television. He created and hosted Bronco Roads, a documentary and lifestyle series syndicated to more than 22 million households and honoured with two Emmy Awards. He went on to create and host Troubadour, TX for The CW Network, exploring the lives and work of singer-songwriters and featuring the songwriter and actor Kris Kristofferson.

As a filmmaker, he wrote and directed the short film The Birth of Saint Eliseo. It premiered at the Santa Fe Independent Film Festival and received a Remi Award at WorldFest.

His work as an author continues the same tradition. His debut novel, Cottonwood, received a Benjamin Franklin Award for Best First Book. His literary work also includes the story collection Hope Is a Hard Thing, the illustrated children’s book The Mockingbird Son, and his new novel, Where the Heathen Rage.

Whether working in a recording studio, behind a camera or on the page, Campbell’s work has remained rooted in a fascination with character and place — particularly the landscapes, contradictions, humour, hardship and humanity of the American South and West.

Based in Nashville, Tennessee, he continues to write and create, carrying forward a body of work connected less by medium than by a lifelong belief in the power of a well-told story.