GLEN CAMPBELL: 1936 - 2017
own albums, and in the 1990s recorded a series of gospel CDs. His 2011 album Ghost on the Canvas included contributions from Jakob Dylan, Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick and Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins.
The documentary Glen Campbell . . . I’ll Be Me came out in 2014. The film about Campbell’s 2011-12 farewell tour offers a poignant look at his decline from Alzheimer’s while showcasing his virtuoso guitar chops that somehow continued to shine as his mind unravelled. The song I’m Not Gonna Miss You won a Grammy for best country song in 2015 and was nominated for an Oscar for best original song.
Campbell’s musical career dated back to the early years of rock ’n roll. He was part of the house band for the ABC TV show Shindig! and a member of Phil Spector’s “Wrecking Crew” studio band that played on hits by the Ronettes, the Righteous Brothers and the Crystals. He played guitar on Frank Sinatra’s Strangers In the Night, the Monkees’ I’m a Believer and Elvis Presley’s Viva Las Vegas.
Born outside of Delight, Arkansas, he was just 4 when he learned to play guitar. As a teenager, anxious to escape a life of farm work and unpaid bills, he moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to join his uncle’s band and appear on his uncle’s radio show. By his early 20s, he had formed his own group, the Western Wranglers, and moved to Los Angeles. He opened for the Doors and sang and played bass with the Beach Boys as a replacement for Brian Wilson. (In 1966, Campbell played on the Beach Boys’ classic Pet Sounds album.)
By the late 60s, he was a performer on his own, an appearance on Joey Bishop’s show leading to his TV breakthrough. Tommy Smothers of the Smothers Brothers saw the programme and asked Campbell if he’d like to host a summertime series, The Summer Brothers Smothers Show. Campbell shied from the Smothers Brothers’ political humour, but still accepted the offer.
As he would confide in painful detail, Campbell suffered for his fame and made others suffer as well. He drank heavily, used drugs and indulged in a turbulent relationship with country singer Tanya Tucker in the early 1980s.
He is survived by his wife, Kim; their three children, Cal, Shannon and Ashley; and his children from previous marriages, Debby, Kelli, Travis, Kane and Dillon. He had 10 grandchildren.
Among Campbell’s own hits, Rhinestone Cowboy became his personal anthem. Written and recorded by Larry Weiss in 1974, Rhinestone Cowboy received little attention until Campbell heard it on the radio and quickly related to the story of a veteran performer who triumphs over despair and hardship. Campbell’s version was a chart topper in 1975.
“I thought it was my autobiography set to song,” he wrote 20 years later, in his autobiography, titled Rhinestone Cowboy.