The Texas Campfire Tapes

The Texas Campfire Tapes
Live album by
Released1986
VenueKerrville Folk Festival, Texas
GenreFolk
LabelCooking Vinyl
ProducerPete Lawrence
Michelle Shocked chronology
The Texas Campfire Tapes
(1986)
Short Sharp Shocked
(1988)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic
Robert ChristgauB+
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music
MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide
The Rolling Stone Album Guide
Spin Alternative Record Guide7/10

The Texas Campfire Tapes is the first album by American singer and songwriter Michelle Shocked. The album was "recorded". on a Sony Walkman during an impromptu set performed by Shocked around a campfire at the Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas; the recording was made by Pete Lawrence, founder of the Cooking Vinyl label, on his first visit to the USA. It was then released by Cooking Vinyl in 1986 and Shocked moved over to Europe to support and promote the album, which was subsequently released by Mercury Records. The album reached the top spot on the British independent record chart. It was remastered and reissued in 2003 as a two-CD set called Texas Campfire Takes by Shocked's own label, Mighty Sound.

Another version of "Fogtown" appears as a "hidden track" on Shocked's breakthrough album Short Sharp Shocked (1988), where she is backed by the hardcore punk band MDC.