Crafting vivid stories with his music was an enduring passion for Paul Kamanski, whose best-known songs — including “Hollywood Hills” and “California Kid” — were recorded and popularized on albums by the globe-trotting San Diego roots-rock band the Beat Farmers. His Oct. 5 death from sudden heart failure at age 68 has silenced Kamanski’s voice, but his music lives on.
“I play Paul’s songs at every show I do, and for the past few years I have always introduced each of them by saying: ‘Paul Kamanski is San Diego’s greatest songwriter’,” said Beat Farmers mainstay Joey Harris, who performed alongside Kamanski in such highly regarded San Diego bands as Fingers, the Pleasure Barons, the Rock Trio, Electric Sons and Country Dick & the Snuggle Bunnies.
“Paul is right up there with Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Smokey Robinson as one of my favorite songwriters of all time,” said fellow Beat Farmer Jerry Raney. “His songs were well-written and thought out, the chord progressions were really good, and his lyrics were very clever.”
Kamanski’s work is held in similarly high regard by former San Diego troubadour Steve Poltz, who co-wrote Jewel’s chart-topping 1997 song, “You Were Meant For Me,” and has a dozen solo albums to his credit.
“I’ve always been an admirer of Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Paul Westerberg, and I think Paul Kamanski was cut from the same mold as them,” Poltz said. “I learned a lot from Paul by watching and observing what he did. Paul wrote thoughtful songs that had an edge to them and told a story.”
Kamanski lived from the mid-1980s until late 2020 in Mission Hills. He and his wife of 28 years, singer Caren Campbell-Kamanski, then moved to the small Northern California town of Walker, halfway between Lake Tahoe and Mammoth Lakes. He died in Reno, Nevada, on Oct. 5.
“It was very sudden,” said Campbell-Kamanski, who performed frequently with her husband. “Our last show together was Sept. 21 in a little music venue at the Andruss Motel in Walker. Paul played three straight hours without a break.”
The set list that night mixed songs Kamanski had written, including “Blue Chevrolet” and “Nickels and Dimes,” with favorites by Neil Young, Gram Parsons and San Diego’s Farrage Brothers. Also featured was Kamanski’s “Bigger Stones,” one of the standout numbers on “Tales of the New West,” the acclaimed debut album by the Beat Farmers.
The song was inspired by Kamanski’s camaraderie and shared dreams with fellow Coronado High School student Joey Harris. The two rose to local prominence together as members of Fingers, one of San Diego’s best original-music bands of the late-1970s and early 1980s, and in several other bands thereafter.
“Paul and Joey were great friends,” Raney said.
“Bigger Stones” begins with the lines: “Sometimes I wanna fall asleep and die off in a dream/ The music takes me back to my old past when I was young and feelin’ mean/ And as I stare into the spotlight, it’s like drivin’ in my car/ We had the girls and a will, and a bill on a stolen credit card/ Sayin’ someday we’ll be stars, Joe.”
After another verse, the chorus kicks in: “Seems like we rolled bigger stones back then/ Seems like we rolled bigger stones.”
“That song still rings so true to me, because Paul’s talking (in the lyrics) about Joey Harris and how they grew up together,” Canadian native Poltz said, speaking by phone Thursday as he was en route to perform near Toronto with fellow Kamanski fan Danny Michel.
“I grew up in Canada listening to the Beat Farmers and Paul’s songs, and my band toured here with the Beat Farmers,” Michel recalled. “I never met Paul, but my band in high school covered his song, ‘Hollywood Hills,’ when I was 16.”
Kamanski’s love of music took root early on. He was born to Charles and Robin Kamanski on Dec. 16, 1955, in the San Mateo city of San Carlos. His attorney father was also an avocational songwriter.
“Paul’s dad was a great storyteller,” said guitarist Billy Thompson, the lead guitarist in the band Fingers. “Paul was an adventuresome wordsmith as a songwriter. He loved searching for new brush strokes with which to paint double entendres and many a metaphor. He was a very funny, wild, and crazy guy in his youth.”
A talented singer and guitarist, Kamanski had rock-star looks and considerable charisma. But songwriting was his forte, and the Beat Farmers recorded nearly a dozen of his songs. One of them, “Hollywood Hills,” was covered by actor Kevin Costner and his band, Modern West. The song also earned Kamanski a music-publishing deal with Los Angeles-based Bug Music.
Comanche Moon, the band Kamanski led for more than a decade, recorded several albums. The first, “Electric Lizardland,” won Best Local Recording honors at the 1995 San Diego Music Awards.
“Paul enjoyed being in a band and recording his own songs, but I don’t think he really wanted to go on the road,” Raney said. “And I don’t blame him; it’s a hard life.”
Kamanski enjoyed rebuilding vintage motorcycles when not making music. He wrote more than 400 songs and recorded many of them in his home studio, first in Mission Hills and then in Walker, where a musical celebration of his life is planned for next spring.
In addition to his wife, Kamanski is survived by their daughter, Tennessee Snow Cree Kamanski Dennis, and by his brothers, Brad and Charles W.P. Kamanski Jr. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Paul Kamanski’s name to the Antelope Valley Lions Club, P.O. Box 157, Coleville, CA. 96107.
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