Once More With Feeling

Last June, it was announced that Glen Campbell had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. For the 75-year-old country legend, it marked the end, or at least the beginning of the end, of a remarkable career that had spanned over six decades. Campbell first came to prominence in the mid to late 1960s with a string of hits, many of them written by his songwriting partner, Jimmy Webb, including timeless classics such as ‘By The Time I Get To Phoenix’, ‘Galveston’ and ‘Wichita Lineman’, while he also scored hits with ‘Gentle On My Mind’ and ‘Dreams Of The Everyday Housewife’. Hosting his own TV show at the height of his fame, his success at the top continued well into the 1970s when he had one of his biggest hits, ‘Rhinestone Cowboy’, which was followed by the autobiographical ‘Country Boy’ and a version of Allen Toussaint’s ‘Southern Nights’.

The decision to go public on his illness was deliberate. He was still touring and recording but Kim, his wife of 30 years, had noticed that he was developing short-term memory problems, not to mention the fact that he was telling the same jokes over and over.
“He always put in flawless performances but he was beginning to fluff the occasional lyric,” she said at the time. People would often come up to me afterwards and ask was he drinking again, so we decided it would be best to let people know the reality of the situation.” Campbell, a one time hell-raiser who has had his fair share of problems with drink, drugs and women (he’s been married four times) joked at the time that the disease didn’t really bother him at all, as there was a lot of stuff “he didn’t want to remember anyway.”
He also said that he was going to release one final album and go out on a farewell tour before retiring from the public eye. That album, Ghost On The Canvas, featuring songs from several contemporary artists, has just been released to glowing five-star reviews. The farewell tour hits Ireland for dates in Dublin, Kerry and Mayo at the end of this month. In fact, when he walks off after the final encore at his show in Castlebar, it may well be has last ever appearance on a European stage.
Talking to Campbell on the phone from his Malibu home just as he’s about to leave for Europe, he’s friendly and warm in a way that only an Arkansas country boy can be, but you get the sense that interviews are a bit of a struggle. His wife is by his side to help fill in the gaps in his memory and she prompts him several times during our short conversation.
How is he feeling right now?
“Oh, great, thanks. You know I‘ve always said my life so far has been an incredible ride. I enjoy playing and I enjoy singing and that’s what I do. It never seemed like I had to work at it. I didn’t even have to even think about it – it all just happened for me.”
One of 12 children born into a sharecropping family in rural Arkansas, he picked up a guitar at sixteen and headed west for California at 21.
“I’m a self-taught musician,” he says. “When I was a kid I just played what was on the radio, whether it was country, pop or classical. I just played things as I heard them and learned to play that way.”
He found success fairly quickly, playing initially with The Champs, who had a huge hit with the novelty song ‘Tequila’. But before he became a star in his own right, he was a key member of the Wrecking Crew – a crack group of LA-based studio session musicians who played on countless hits of the era, including such gems as The Righteous Brothers’ ‘You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling’, Frank Sinatra’s ‘Strangers In The Night’ and many of the Monkees, Mamas & Papas and early Byrds hits. He also played on the Beach Boys’ seminal Pet Sounds album, even standing in for Brian Wilson as a temporary touring Beach Boy at one point.
“I went all around the world with Ricky Nelson too,” he reminds me, as if to prove he’s not forgotten those early days as a backing musician to the stars. “I just loved playing - I was mainly a rhythm player in all those sessions that I did back then. I think they kept on picking me for the job because I was the only guy who knew how to use a capo (laughs). It’s true, my dad had made me a crude capo – a kind of a clamp thing that I figured out how to use very early on. I could put it any position and play in any key and do any kind of open chord they wanted. Not a lot of players could do that at the time, so I guess I was lucky.”
He also played on several Elvis Presley studio sessions including the Viva Las Vegas soundtrack and came to be close friends with the King of Rock and Roll.
“Elvis was a real nice guy and a great singer,” he says. “But I played on the Ray Charles country and western album too and that was another one I remember being real proud of.”
His stint as a Beach Boy, filling in for Brian Wilson, who had given up touring, was short-lived but seen as successful at the time. Did they ever ask him to join the band again – and would he consider it, perhaps for the rumoured 50th anniversary tour next year?
“If they’d wanted me badly enough I’d probably have played with them again but I guess they didn’t. I don’t know if they’re doing this anniversary tour or not. They’re still working on it I guess.”
Ghost On The Canvas marks a fitting swansong for Campbell. His voice is as clear as ever, while the backing from a host of younger musicians including Billy Corgan, Jakob Dylan and Chris Isaak lends it a contemporary sound. The gorgeous plaintive title-track, written by former Replacement Paul Westerberg, harks back to the lush, melodic style of his ‘60s hits, where he blended country and pop. He’s a little vague however on the recording of the album.
“Well, I guess we wanted to finish with something a little different and I was given these songs and I liked ‘em. My wife said it’s one of the best albums I’ve ever made and she’s always right (laughs). I enjoyed making it, it was marvellous doing those songs.
“Music has been such a blessing to me,” he continues, his mind wandering again. “I always liked to hear good stuff. I was, and I still am, a tune doctor. If I hear a good song it don’t make any difference who wrote it or who sung it. I changed it to do what I wanted it to do.”
Always hugely popular in this country, he’s played here several times recently, including a headline slot at the Midlands Country Festival in 2006 and an appearance at Vicar St. in 2008 where he performed a version of U2’s ‘All I Want Is You’.
”I love it there,” he says. “Great golf too. I can’t wait to get back one last time. I’ll be doing a little bit of everything, the best of all the good stuff. Yeah, I think that’s what I should call this tour - the best of all the good stuff!”

Ghost On The Canvas is out now. Glen Campbell plays The Convention Centre Dublin on November 19.