JESSI CAMPO
Fort Lauderdale, FL | Established. Jan 01, 2000 | INDIE
Music
Press
Big in Taipei
Jessi James Campo tries to make it back home
By Celeste Fraser Delgado Thursday, Jan 11 2001
The club in the photograph is filled with laughing Taiwanese, their eyes riveted on the Latina woman with the microphone dancing on the tiny stage, dressed in a gold minidress with black boots. Jessi James Campo is on tour in Taipei, teaching an eager audience how to dance merengue. The audience is thrilled to hear the Latin beat. The names Ricky Martin and Jennifer Lopez recently have made their way into the Chinese vocabulary. Now James is trying to add a few more phrases in both Spanish and English. "Patacon pisao," she sings, describing both a banana dish and a Latin dance. "Go down, go down, go down," she sings, adding the English command to the Spanish-language song. Then she throws in two of the very few words she knows in Chinese: "Clap hands."
"This is in Hong Kong," says James, flipping through a thick photo album at a restaurant in Miami Beach last November. "I've been home for three months," she adds, referring to her latest jaunt in a series of tours through Asia that also has taken her to Singapore, Bangkok, and Guam. "We go out for three months then come back for one month," she explains of the gigs booked through a U.S. agency. "Last year I was out for nine months. The year before for six months." James has enjoyed a much bigger response in Asia than she has yet to receive in South Florida, where the singer grew up. - Miami New Times
Discography
How Can I CD 2000
Gypsy CD 2004
Photos
Bio
Born in New York of Latin descent, Jessi Campo first began singing and writing songs on her guitar at the age of 12. Jessi’s specialty is to capture a memorable moment through her lyrics and interpretations so that each person who is present feels her music. As a bilingual singersongwriter and accomplished entertainer, Campo has toured Asia extensively, and had a performance role singing in Hebrew in the feature film Striptease during a scene featuring Burt Reynolds. Inspired by family, especially parents Giovanni and Nina, who performed with many famous Latin music icons such as Tito Puente, Perez Prado, Beny More, Tony Bennett and many more. Jessi has released four full-length recordings: How Can I (2000), 2013’s At Last, Con Corazon in 2014, and La Pasión de La Lupe (2016). Seven of her songs earned placement in the 2016 Dream Act legislation feature film called El Sueño, which premiered May 26 in El Paso, TX. She produced a radio show called Straight from the Heart that webcast on iHeart Radio and WWNNRadio.com, as well as on terrestrial radio in Boca Raton, FL on 1470 AM. She can be seen performing at venues such as The Lilt Lounge in Downtown Miami, Books and Books Cafe in Coral Gables, Piano Hollywood at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, Farraddays at the Isle Casino and in August she toured in New Orleans performing at several venues including the House of Blues.
Band Members
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