R.I.P. Glenn Campbell

[Snarfyguy]

It was well known that he'd been ill, so this won't come as a surprise, but pour some out. Solo career, member of the Wrecking Crew, subbed for Brian Wilson in The Beach Boys - a lengend.

http://www.rollingstone.com/country/new ... dead-at-81

[Sneelock]

Even before I knew of his considerable cred, I knew him for replacing The Smothers Brothers on TV. Looking back, he did avery good job of straddling the fence between the edgy thing that the Smothers were doing and something that seemed more wholesome. I think I first saw Emmylou Harris on his show. I certainly got to know John Hartford & the songs of Jimmy Webb from G.C.

It's no surprise he's gone but It's no small thing when we lose someone who did things well. He had sticky coat tails. A lot of ships got to rise with his tide. We all know he had troubled times but he'll always have that. His success would reflect well on many others by the time he passed. R.I.P.

[Carlisle Wheeling]

One of my late mum's favourites. I can still remember going down to the local electrical shop back in the day to pick up the By the Time I Get to Phoenix single. For the next few years mum's Christmas present would always include a GC album. I always enjoyed them but hoped one day that he would cut out the strings. I got excited when I heard the I Knew Jesus single - it really rocked - but it was not to be. Still. a great entertainer and he wasn't a disappointment when I finally got to see him a few years ago, despite the early signs of Alzheimer's.

RIP Glen.

[clive gash]

When I was getting into Uncle Tupelo, Gram, Mike Nesmith, Byrds in 1992/3 the folk memory of Glen's radio hits made a nice little foundation for what I was hearing.

A couple of years later I hear "Guess I'm Dumb" which blows my mind and brings it all back, so trippy that he was in the Wilson Universe.

And then even after that, when I heard Willie Nelson's Phases and Stages and Nesmith's Wax Minute and Joni's Court and Spark I still heard Campbell/Webb in it.

This sound/mood/feel has become my favourite, and, as I argue in my forthcoming book "Suckin' in the 70s - Ponderin' that Decade" (Polymath Spring 2018), the most enduring sound of the time. (Punk was nothing more than a reaction to the relative lack of music biz opportunities caused by the oil crises, three day week, rarity of vinyl - you'll have to buy the book for the rest, my Prog chapter is currently going through legal 'revision').

Thank you Glen Campbell.

[naughty boy]

Lovely posts, thanks.

RIP Glen.

[Ranking Ted]

It's impossible to think of anyone not liking Glenn. Those Webb singles are literally perfect and perfectly heartbreaking. Of course there was much more but those songs are eternal. RIP.

[Charlie O.]

I can't do much more than echo what's already been said. Although I can add that he was a shit-hot guitar picker, which he didn't get to show off as much once he became a singing star/TV personality.



(skip to 2:35 for the guitar solo)



Oh, and I'll always love him (and Anne) for this glorious mashup:

[Six String]

I had an uncle who had his albums back when I was twelve or so. He would let me play his records when we came over for family things which was a great diversion as adults talking their adult things didn't appeal but Glenn Campbell, Beatles, Rolling Stones, Animals and The Ventures sounded great in comparison. I always enjoyed the GC stuff even though the Stones and Beatles were more hip in '66.

Forgot to add, my uncle (by marriage) had an uncle who lived in Albuquerque and had a radio show and Glenn was married to his daughter or someone related and he played in Dick Bills' band on the radio in New Mexico beforehe moved to California and made the big time. I still have an album by Glenn that my uncle gave me where he plays kind of lounge jazz with a keyboard player no one has heard of. It's instrumental and interesting in a lounge-jazz kind of way.

One of my favorites is an album he made with Jimmy Webb called Reunion. It was after the big hits and tv show, hence the title. They play a Little Feat song!

R.I.P. Glenn

[...]

RIP Mr C.

Anyone here see the documentary about his final tour? Think it's called I'll Be Me. Probably still on Sky Box sets for anyone in the UK and well worth a watch

[Diamond Dog]

This tribute from Jimmy Webb damn near broke my heart :

Dear Friends,

Well, that moment has come that we have known was an inevitable certainty and yet stings like a sudden catastrophe. Let the world note that a great American influence on pop music, the American Beatle, the secret link between so many artists and records that we can only marvel, has passed and cannot be replaced - my friend and brother in music, Glen Campbell. He was bountiful. He gave me a $2,000 bag of golf clubs once and I went out to Sterling Forest in Tuxedo Park and damned near killed myself trying to learn to play golf. He gave me a Remington 45/70 for my birthday and I was immediately more successful with that. His was a world of gifts freely exchanged: Roger Miller stories, songs from the best writers, an old Merle Haggard record, or a pocket knife.

He gave me a great wide lens through which to look at music. I watched him in awe executing his flawless rendition of “The William Tell Overture” on his classical guitar in his Vegas show. Jazz he loved. He claimed he learned the most about playing the guitar from Django Reinhardt. The cult of The Players? He was at the very center. He loved trading eights with George Benson in a great duel that broke out on a television show one night. Vince Gill and Keith Urban he eulogized. (About Urban he said one night, “that kid is a monster.”) Talking about Vince he would slowly shake his head in disbelief. He was recognized internationally in that unchartered fraternity of the very hot players, like Mark Knopfler, Jeff Beck and Paul McCartney. (Sir Paul was present at one of the final concerts and paid a backstage visit.) He loved The Beach Boys and in subtle ways helped mold their sound. He loved Don and Phil, Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield, Flatt and Scruggs. This was the one great lesson that I learned from him as a kid: Musically speaking nothing is out of bounds.

Of course, he lavished affection and gifts on his kids, family and friends. His love was a deep mercurial thing and once committed he was a tenacious friend as so many in Nashville and Phoenix, L.A. and New York, compadres all over the world would testify. One of his favorite songs was “Try A Little Kindness” in which he sings “shine your light on everyone you see.” My God. Did he do that or what? Just thinking back I believe suddenly that the “raison d’etre” for every Glen Campbell show was to bring every suffering soul within the sound of his voice up a peg or two. Leave ’em laughin.’ Leave them feeling just a little tad better about themselves; even though he might have to make them cry a couple of times to get ’em there. What a majestically graceful and kind, top rate performer was Glen on his worst night!

I remember one evening after his Vegas show he grabbed me and Roger Miller and Carl Jackson and we all went over to a hotel on the back side of the strip where Kenny Rogers was playing a one a.m. gig in a half empty room. Kenny was floating somewhere between the First Edition and mega stardom and things were kinda slow round about then. In we trooped and Glen sat down in a big booth and ordered ice buckets full of beer and champagne. We whooped and hollered our way through every damn song. We went back stage after and we loved on that big old bearded guy with a frog in his throat who was headed for the stratosphere of stardom.

When it came to friendship Glen was the real deal. He spoke my name from ten thousand stages. He was my big brother, my protector, my co-culprit, my John crying in the wilderness. Nobody liked a Jimmy Webb song as much as Glen! And yet he was generous with other writers: Larry Weiss, Allen Toussaint, John Hartford. You have to look hard for a bad song on a Glen Campbell album. He was giving people their money’s worth before it became fashionable.

I am full of grief. I am writing because I think you deserve some sort of message from me but I am too upset to write very well or at any great length. It’s like waking up in the morning in some Kafkaesque novella and finding that half of you is missing. Laura and I would call upon you to rest your sympathy with Kim Campbell and her children Cal, Shannon and Ashley; his older children, Debby, Kelli, Travis, Kane, and Dillon; grandchildren, great- and great-great-grandchildren. Perhaps you could throw in a prayer for the Webb kids, Chris, Justin, Jamie, Corey, Charles and Camila who looked upon him as a kind of wondrous uncle who was a celebrated star and funnier than old dad.

This I can promise. While I can play a piano he will never be forgotten. And after that someone else will revel in his vast library of recordings and pass them on to how many future generations? Possibly to all of them.

Jimmy

RIP Glenn.

[Insouciant Western People]

It's impossible to think of anyone not liking Glenn. Those Webb singles are literally perfect and perfectly heartbreaking. Of course there was much more but those songs are eternal. RIP.

What he said, pretty much.

[F.o.W]

This tribute from Jimmy Webb damn near broke my heart :

Dear Friends,

Well, that moment has come that we have known was an inevitable certainty and yet stings like a sudden catastrophe. Let the world note that a great American influence on pop music, the American Beatle, the secret link between so many artists and records that we can only marvel, has passed and cannot be replaced - my friend and brother in music, Glen Campbell. He was bountiful. He gave me a $2,000 bag of golf clubs once and I went out to Sterling Forest in Tuxedo Park and damned near killed myself trying to learn to play golf. He gave me a Remington 45/70 for my birthday and I was immediately more successful with that. His was a world of gifts freely exchanged: Roger Miller stories, songs from the best writers, an old Merle Haggard record, or a pocket knife.

He gave me a great wide lens through which to look at music. I watched him in awe executing his flawless rendition of “The William Tell Overture” on his classical guitar in his Vegas show. Jazz he loved. He claimed he learned the most about playing the guitar from Django Reinhardt. The cult of The Players? He was at the very center. He loved trading eights with George Benson in a great duel that broke out on a television show one night. Vince Gill and Keith Urban he eulogized. (About Urban he said one night, “that kid is a monster.”) Talking about Vince he would slowly shake his head in disbelief. He was recognized internationally in that unchartered fraternity of the very hot players, like Mark Knopfler, Jeff Beck and Paul McCartney. (Sir Paul was present at one of the final concerts and paid a backstage visit.) He loved The Beach Boys and in subtle ways helped mold their sound. He loved Don and Phil, Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield, Flatt and Scruggs. This was the one great lesson that I learned from him as a kid: Musically speaking nothing is out of bounds.

Of course, he lavished affection and gifts on his kids, family and friends. His love was a deep mercurial thing and once committed he was a tenacious friend as so many in Nashville and Phoenix, L.A. and New York, compadres all over the world would testify. One of his favorite songs was “Try A Little Kindness” in which he sings “shine your light on everyone you see.” My God. Did he do that or what? Just thinking back I believe suddenly that the “raison d’etre” for every Glen Campbell show was to bring every suffering soul within the sound of his voice up a peg or two. Leave ’em laughin.’ Leave them feeling just a little tad better about themselves; even though he might have to make them cry a couple of times to get ’em there. What a majestically graceful and kind, top rate performer was Glen on his worst night!

I remember one evening after his Vegas show he grabbed me and Roger Miller and Carl Jackson and we all went over to a hotel on the back side of the strip where Kenny Rogers was playing a one a.m. gig in a half empty room. Kenny was floating somewhere between the First Edition and mega stardom and things were kinda slow round about then. In we trooped and Glen sat down in a big booth and ordered ice buckets full of beer and champagne. We whooped and hollered our way through every damn song. We went back stage after and we loved on that big old bearded guy with a frog in his throat who was headed for the stratosphere of stardom.

When it came to friendship Glen was the real deal. He spoke my name from ten thousand stages. He was my big brother, my protector, my co-culprit, my John crying in the wilderness. Nobody liked a Jimmy Webb song as much as Glen! And yet he was generous with other writers: Larry Weiss, Allen Toussaint, John Hartford. You have to look hard for a bad song on a Glen Campbell album. He was giving people their money’s worth before it became fashionable.

I am full of grief. I am writing because I think you deserve some sort of message from me but I am too upset to write very well or at any great length. It’s like waking up in the morning in some Kafkaesque novella and finding that half of you is missing. Laura and I would call upon you to rest your sympathy with Kim Campbell and her children Cal, Shannon and Ashley; his older children, Debby, Kelli, Travis, Kane, and Dillon; grandchildren, great- and great-great-grandchildren. Perhaps you could throw in a prayer for the Webb kids, Chris, Justin, Jamie, Corey, Charles and Camila who looked upon him as a kind of wondrous uncle who was a celebrated star and funnier than old dad.

This I can promise. While I can play a piano he will never be forgotten. And after that someone else will revel in his vast library of recordings and pass them on to how many future generations? Possibly to all of them.

Jimmy

RIP Glenn.

Wow. Just Wow. Says it all.
R.I.P., Mr Campbell, Sir.
Thanks for sharing DD.

[clive gash]

[The Modernist]

A great talent.
Looking through his singles discography reveals how many songs he released, even in his classic period, that I'm unaware of. He's the kind of artist that a bit of digging will unearth all sorts of rewards.
He's also the kind of artist that only the sixties could have produced - a composite of country artist, balladeer,instrumentalist and hip LA scenester. After the 60s, the music scene became too compartmentalised to produce this kind of multi-faceted artist.
Anyway RIP to a true legend.

[Your Friendly Neighbourhood Postman]

Thanks to Pete for relaying that obituary by Jimmy Webb - unique and touching in a very sweet way.

[harvey k-tel]

Just found out that an old friend of mine thought the Rhinestone Cowboy was "getting corn and lettuce from people I don't even know".

RIP Glen

[Rayge]

"Suckin' in the 70s - Ponderin' that Decade" (Polymath Spring 2018),

Behave yourself young Gash: Polymath is a fully registered trade name, and my dog lawyers will be all over you if you appropriate it

[Rayge]

Oh, and Mr Campbell, as a fully paid up member of the Wrecking Crew, could do no wrong for me, although he tended to flit in and out of my ken, beginning with my finding a 2nd hand copy of Turn Around, Look at Me in 1962 or so. What a fine song that is

[clive gash]

"Suckin' in the 70s - Ponderin' that Decade" (Polymath Spring 2018),

Behave yourself young Gash: Polymath is a fully registered trade name, and my dog lawyers will be all over you if you appropriate it

No one's told you? They're using the profits from Mbawe to print it and to pay for my advance (any day now I've been assured).

[Six String]

Thanks to Pete for posting that note from Jimmy Webb.