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piece orchestras. His deal was
he didn’t read [music], so they
would play it one time for him,
and he had it.”
In late 1964, Brian Wilson
suffered a nervous breakdown
while touring with the Beach
Boys, and the other members
reached out to Campbell to
replace him on bass and har-
monies. “He fit right in,” said
Wilson. “He could sing higher
than I could!”
Campbell finally scored a
smash-hit record of his own in
1967, with “By the Time I Get
to Phoenix”, written by Jimmy
Webb, an Oklahoma-bred kid
with a knack for winding, in-
tricate ballads. The men had
little in common – the song-
writer was a hippie, the coun-
try star a short-haired conser-
vative – but Campbell became
the definitive interpreter of
Webb’s songs, hitting artistic
peaks with tracks including
the loping Vietnam War la-
ment “Galveston”, and the ex-
traordinary, aching “Wichita
Lineman”, about the existential
loneliness of a telephone-pole
worker, with a lovely, climac-
tic high note. They’re obvious
classics now, but with their
lush orchestral arrangements
and polished productions, the
Webb-Campbell songs weren’t
hip. “They felt packaged for a
middle-of-the-road, older
crowd,” said Petty. “But it was
such pure, good stuff that you
had to put off your prejudices
and learn to love it.” In 1968,
Campbell had Grammy noms
in both the country and pop
categories – and that year he
outsold the Beatles.
In 1969, Campbell became
the genial, charismatic host of
The Glen Campbell Goodtime
Hour, which ran on CBS until- Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, Cream and others performed
on the show, which could be hokey: Levon Helm recalled the
Band walking out after they were told to lip-sync on top of a pick-
up truck. But it was also full of thrilling moments, like an early
television performance by a young, clean-cut Willie Nelson. “He
brought in a lot of fans that wouldn’t normally have been listen-
ing to country music,” said Nelson. “But Glen did the same thing
with his own music.”
In 1972, the show was cancelled, and the hits started to dry up.
Campbell channelled those experiences into the 1975 comeback
smash “Rhinestone Cowboy” – Larry Weiss’ rousing, if cheesy,
tale of showbiz persistence. But around that time, Campbell was
slipping into a life-shaking addiction to cocaine and alcohol. In
his memoir, he recalled snorting lines during his nightly Bible
readings. “It was like a dog
that gets into your henhouse
and steals your eggs,” he once
said of the drug.
Campbell made tabloid
headlines for his yearlong sub-
stance-fuelled fling with coun-
try singer Tanya Tucker, who
was 22 years his junior. “In
our sick slavery to things of the
flesh, we were either having sex
or fighting,” said Campbell. In
his autobiography, he recalled
that in their duet of the nation-
al anthem at the 1980 Republi-
can National Convention, they
were “higher than the notes we
were singing”.
He met Kimberly Woollen,
who danced with the Rock-
ettes at Radio City Music
Hall, in 1981. She became his
fourth wife, and helped him
clean up his life. “I give Kim-
berly all the credit for that,” he
said. “I’m very, very blessed. If
you pray... there will be re-
turn mail. I believe that. Be-
cause I’ve seen that happen.
I don’t even know when’s the
last whiskey I took or cocaine
up the nose. It’s a clean slate.”
Years before his 2011 di-
agnosis, however, Campbell’s
family began to suspect some-
thing else was wrong. He’d
obsess on odd subjects: the
washcloths in the bathroom,
or how much he hated Kim’s
BMW. But when the diagnosis
finally came, he “dealt with it
heroically”, Webb said. “His op-
timism is unflagging. He’s still
here, still playing the game.
The temptation would be to
withdraw and say, ‘I can’t deal
with it.’ But that’s not him.”
Eventually, Kim says, after
the final tour, Campbell be-
came prone to violent out-
bursts, making it impossible
to care for him. She moved
him to a Nashville memory-care facility. A few weeks before his
death, she spoke of the disease’s toll. He no longer recognised her.
Children from a previous marriage had filed a lawsuit aiming to
take away conservatorship from her. “He can’t defend his wife,”
she said. “He can’t scold his children, tell them to stop. It’s been
really painful and heartbreaking.”
But Campbell kept trying to add beauty to the world almost
until the end. After the tour finished, he played golf every day –
but became more interested in hunting for balls in the bushes.
“His pockets were bulging with golf balls,” said Kim. “Glen would
write messages on them: ‘God is love’, ‘Love the Lord’. He thought,
‘If someone hits this ball and it goes into the bushes, when some-
body finds it, then they’ll get this message – that God blessed
them.’ He wanted to send messages out to people about that.”10EssentialGlenCampbellSongs
Five decades of epic performances – from gentle ballads to
country-pop chart-toppers to powerful reckonings with mortalityGuess I’m Dumb 1965
Campbell’s solo ascent started
with this magnificent Brian Wilson
ballad, on which the singer’s high
tenor, both boyish and huge, was
wrapped in lush orchestration.Gentle on My Mind 1967
This wistful love song (conjured by
folkie songwriter John Hartford) be-
came Campbell’s signature country
classic and the theme song to his
popular TV variety show.By the Time I Get
to Phoenix 1967
Campbell’s first hit from the pen
of Jimmy Webb was a widescreen
breakup epic, covered by artists
from Frank Sinatra to Nick Cave.Wichita Lineman 1968
Webb and Campbell’s masterpiece- a sweeping, string-painted image
of high-plains isolation. Campbell
didn’t just sing it perfectly, he also
revised bits of Webb’s demo.
Galveston 1969
Webb’s tale of a soldier missing his
home was a Top Five hit during the
Vietnam War. Campbell was more
of a Nixon guy, but when he sings
“I am so afraid of dying”, the song’s
anti-war soul breaks through.Rhinestone Cowboy 1975
Campbell, who hadn’t had a big
hit in a while, sang this hard-luck
survivor’s tale with deep empathy,
turning it into a countrypolitan
piece for the Sun Belt Seventies.Southern Nights 1977
His cover of a disco-funk jam by
New Orleans R&B great Allen Tous-
saint turned it into a charmingly
sentimental reverie that topped the
pop and country charts and showed
up on the Guardians of the Galaxy
Vol. 2 soundtrack this year.She’s Gone, Gone, Gone 1989
Campbell jacks up the tempo on a
tune made famous by Lefty Frizzell’s
1965 hit version. It’s one of his most
explicitly country performances, full
of tear-jerking honky-tonk spirit.Ghost on the Canvas 2011
Written by Replacements bard Paul
Westerberg, this late-period tune’s
lyrics hit home hard in the wake of
the singer’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis.A Better Place 2011
With this tender farewell, which
Campbell co-wrote, he addresses
his life’s final stage with as much
unflinching authority as David Bowie
or Leonard Cohen. WILL HERMESSOUTHERN MAN
In L.A., 1967