Glen Campbell

Glen Travis Campbell was born in Delight, Arkansas, in 1936, into a poor sharecropping family with 12 children, who slept three or four to a bed and had no electricity (and sometimes no food).

By the age of eight, he was playing guitar at church socials in his Uncle Boo’s Western group. At 15, he and Boo left for Wyoming, playing roadhouses and whorehouses before they were run out of town, hocking their guitars for the bus fare home.

Soon after, another musical uncle, Dick Bills, summoned Glen to Albuquerque to play in his band, The Sandia Mountain Boys, and appear on his daily radio show.

Campbell spent the rest of his teens in New Mexico, where he acquired the first of his four wives, the first two of his nine children (the first died in infancy) and the first band of his own, The Western Wranglers.

In 1960, Glen and his second wife moved to California, where he played in several rock groups and became one of the most successful and sought-after session guitarists, working with Elvis Presley, Rick Nelson, Frank Sinatra, Dick Dale, Dean Martin, Sonny & Cher, Merle Haggard, The Monkees, Bobby Darin and many others.

He became part of the legendary Wrecking Crew (pictured), the loose band of skilled and versatile LA session players – including Hal Blaine, Carol Kaye, Tommy Tedesco, Nino Tempo, James Burton and Leon Russell – whose playing defined much of the US pop and rock sound of an era when record companies didn’t trust the bands to play in the studio themselves.

In 1961, he scored his first solo success as a singer on the Country & Western charts with Turn Around Look At Me, but it wasn’t until 1967, with Gentle On My Mind, that Glen became a big name.

Turning down the job of replacing Brian Wilson in The Beach Boys (with whom he did record and tour), he went on to have hits with By The Time I Get To Phoenix (1967), Wichita Lineman (1968), a revival of All I Have To Do Is Dream (1968) with Bobbie Gentry, and Galveston (1969).

His own television show and a co-starring role with John Wayne in True Grit (1969) followed.

By 1969, though, Campbell was caught in a sucking vacuum of easy listening. Ironically, he was also flirting with multiple addictions (booze, prescription drugs and cocaine) and only 1974’s Reunion was ever to feed his more discerning fans again.

His exhilarating take on the Larry Weiss song Rhinestone Cowboy became his first US #1 single on 6 September 1975. It turned Campbell into a bona fide country superstar, gave him his signature song, and gave his career a second wind.

Somehow, Campbell always managed to be simultaneously hip and easy-listening, country and pop, singing about being a hard-lovin’, ramblin’ man despite his saccharine image and crisper-than-starch side-parting.

He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2011 and embarked on a final “Goodbye Tour”. His final show was on 30 November 2012, in Napa, California. He then recorded his final album, Adiós, in Nashville.

He died on 8 August 2017. He was 81.

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