Lee Camp knows exactly when he had the idea that grew into the Tokens Show, now in its twelfth year. On New Years Eve 2006, he was at Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion show at the Ryman Auditorium with guests Old Crow Medicine Show, Emmylou Harris, Suzy Bogguss, and Cowboy Jack Clement. He remembers singing along, his tenor voice probably a little loud, when he thought, “What if we did a show like this, but theologically-informed?”
Camp, Lipscomb professor of theology and ethics, said that from his early years of teaching, whenever he lectured on social justice or war and peace, students brought him songs that fit the themes, usually from the broad Americana category, that “accomplished in three minutes what we academics would take hundreds of pages to communicate—and not nearly so compelling.”
Around the same time, Lee Camp was in a Sunday School class on spirituality and creativity when he heard this advice from the teacher: “If you have a crazy idea, but you’re afraid it might fail, you need to go and do it.” At the time, he knew only one person in the music business, head of Sony Music Nashville Randy Goodman, with Lyric Street at the time. Goodman listened and told him it was a great idea. No excuses.
As Camp started asking around for Music Director recommendations, two different people suggested Jeff Taylor, who at the time was playing every Monday night at the Station Inn.
“I caught him at a break and mentioned what I was thinking. We met for coffee, and he told me that he and Buddy Greene had just had a conversation about doing just this kind of project,” Camp says. Taylor signed on as musical director for the show, and he and Greene have been regulars ever since. Several other members of the house band, the Most Outstanding Horeb Mountain Boys, have been with the band from the first or second show, including Aubrey Haynie, Byron House, Chris Brown, and Pete Huttlinger.
While the planning process for each show may take weeks, the musicians may not sit down together until the day of the show. But that, Camp says, is the most fun–when these musically brilliant performers put it all together. This is a testament to the professionalism of the band and the entire production team, managed by Phil Barnett of Stonebrook Media.
The theme for the first Tokens Show in 2008 was the “Appalachian Longing for Home,” with a focus on how hope informs our way of life.
Camp says that as he looks back, he sees hope as a recurring theme in all his monologues. “What you hope for informs all your ethic,” he said. “The show addresses the tensions we all live with.”
In the early shows, pre-recorded interviews were used. Since then, the show’s interviews have evolved to be entirely live, conducted by Camp himself. He particularly enjoys interviews with poets—Naomi Shihab Nye, Marie Howe, and one of his favorite interviewees, poet Christian Wiman, who appeared on the show in Abilene, when they took to the road for the Christian Scholars Conference. Camp also prized his interview with Stanley Hauerwas of Duke University, who helped shaped Camp’s own theology work in profound ways.
The comedy sketches are generally a collaboration among Camp, Kevin Colvett, and Jenny Littleton. He credits these two with most of the writing, with his contribution of a few jokes. The monologues, though, have Camp’s distinct stamp. He said there is not a particular formula that produces the Tokens Show’s unique balance of humor and seriousness, although they try to follow the “law of contrasts” in a variety of ways, from musical variety to the show’s tendency to step on toes on both sides of the political aisle.
Tokens Show season ticket holders enjoy four regular shows a year, including three usually held on the campus of Lipscomb University, as well as the annual Thanksgiving show held the Sunday before the holiday at the Ryman Auditorium each year. This year’s Thanksgiving show scheduled on November 24 will feature special guests Dave Barnes and Audrey Assad with SONUS Choir, Buddy Greene, Odessa Settles, J Lind, Bryan Sutton, and more.
For those who haven’t experienced the Tokens Show, Camp says he would like people to think of it as a show that tries to make a space for conversations that matter and that takes hospitality very seriously. What better message now as Americans approach the Thanksgiving holidays?
Tickets can be ordered on the show’s website. https://www1.ticketmaster.com/event/1B00570E946D2F8B