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Swish
05-31-2011, 11:21 AM
Called 'Ghost on the Canvas', Glen is in the midst of recoding his final studio record, and check out the talent that is going to be on this record in the following bio:

In an age where there are so few true hitmakers, the breadth of Glen Campbell’s career is hard to process. The guy has sold 45 million albums, had 81 songs on the charts, won Grammys and numerous other awards, been inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, had a TV show where 50 million people tuned in weekly, played with Sinatra, Elvis, the Beach Boys (on Pet Sounds no less), owned a theater in Branson, acted and did a song for the original True Grit alongside John Wayne, and did it all rising from being the seventh son of a poor Arkansas sharecropper who eventually moved to LA with $300 in his pocket. You can’t even make this stuff up. Check out the attached sheet for about 16 utterly insane career milestones that are only part of the Glen Campbell story. Most session guys wind up in Toto for a few years. Glen Campbell became a country-pop crossover star of mind-lashingly megalithic proportions.

Perhaps the greatest compliment you can give Glen Campbell, though, is his final album Ghost On The Canvas. For starters, no lesser songwriters than Robert Pollard (from Guided By Voices), Paul Westerberg (from the Replacements) and Jakob Dylan have written for this thing. Think about that for a second. Hipster cult god-beings like Westerberg and Pollard aren’t supposed to be fans of this kind of thing. I mean, c’mon, you know… Branson. But that’s how heavy Campbell’s impact has been. “Wichita Lineman,” “Rhinestone Cowboy,” the title track on the Highwaymen album. It’s just undeniable. Oh, and a few guitarists decided to show up, too. You know, little known guys like Dick Dale, Billy Corgan, Rick Nielsen, Brian Setzer. It turns out that when you really take a close look at it Glen Campbell is one of popular music’s most under sung guitarists, too. From his amazing 12-string guitar work on his own albums to his session guitar work as part of the Wrecking Crew (who were Phil Spector’s go-to guys) and on albums by the Monkees, Sinatra, Haggard, Dean Martin and a couple hundred others, Campbell’s guitar has coiled its way deep into the DNA of American music.

Consciously bowing out at the tail end of sixty years in popular music, Glen Campbell hits a serene reflective note on Ghosts On The Canvas. He ditched the booze, drugs, women and song decades ago for a life of reverent religious dignity and he’s written and told his story different times and in different ways before, but here he sings and interprets with the naked humility of a massive lifetime’s twilight. Like Zevon’s The Wind or Dylan’s Time Out of Mind, this album finds a man taking stock of a life all but overstocked with all manner of experience and returning in the face of it all to a place of simple love and gratitude where the drama is all natural and the meaning is palpable in every note. It’s beautiful stuff, and a fitting epilogue to a career that’s dazzled like the brightest rhinestones on any man’s jacket.

3LB
05-31-2011, 01:08 PM
I guess its his turn for the hipster treatment. Pop hipsters sure love those grizzled old country stars.

He and Tanya Tucker do a duet on it as well - a cover of Pat Benetar's Hit Me With Your Best Shot

GMichael
05-31-2011, 01:25 PM
Well I'll be a Rhinestone Cowboy....:eek6:

Swish
06-01-2011, 04:00 AM
Well I'll be a Rhinestone Cowboy....:eek6:

...Glen didn't write Rhinestone Cowboy. It was a guy named Larry Weiss, nor did he write Wichita Lineman (Jimmy Webb), By the Time I Get to Phoenix (Jimmy Webb), Galveston (Jimmy Webb) and Gentle on My Mind (John Hartford). He made piles of money as a (yikes!) cover artist.

Hyfi
06-01-2011, 04:03 AM
...Glen didn't write Rhinestone Cowboy. It was a guy named Larry Weiss, nor did he write Wichita Lineman (Jimmy Webb), By the Time I Get to Phoenix (Jimmy Webb), Galveston (Jimmy Webb) and Gentle on My Mind (John Hartford). He made piles of money as a (yikes!) cover artist.

He can still probably outplay most of today's popular guitarists.

Elton John didn't write most of his songs either, Bernie did.

Swish
06-01-2011, 06:39 AM
Elton John didn't write most of his songs either, Bernie did.

Bernie was his lyricist, not his song-writer. Without the stellar melodies, the lyrics would be just that...lyrics.

GMichael
06-01-2011, 06:58 AM
...Glen didn't write Rhinestone Cowboy. It was a guy named Larry Weiss, nor did he write Wichita Lineman (Jimmy Webb), By the Time I Get to Phoenix (Jimmy Webb), Galveston (Jimmy Webb) and Gentle on My Mind (John Hartford). He made piles of money as a (yikes!) cover artist.

Doesn't that happen a lot?

Robert-The-Rambler
06-01-2011, 07:16 AM
Doesn't that happen a lot?

If you think you can do better than go for it as long as you also do original stuff there is no problem at all.

GMichael
06-01-2011, 07:22 AM
If you think you can do better than go for it as long as you also do original stuff there is no problem at all.

It seems to often be the norm.

If I could write songs, I wouldn't be at the job I have now. :out:

Swish
06-01-2011, 07:23 AM
Doesn't that happen a lot?

...who write great songs. Look at that pop twit Katy Perry. She doesn't write jack squat and is rolling in green, but not many serious music fans or critics are going to tell you she's anything but a performer with a decent voice. Flash-in-the-pan, disposable pop garbage.

Glen, on the other hand, can certainly play, but he became famous by performing and recording songs written by others. It is what it is.

GMichael
06-01-2011, 07:28 AM
...who write great songs. Look at that pop twit Katy Perry. She doesn't write jack squat and is rolling in green, but not many serious music fans or critics are going to tell you she's anything but a performer with a decent voice. Flash-in-the-pan, disposable pop garbage.

Glen, on the other hand, can certainly play, but he became famous by performing and recording songs written by others. It is what it is.

I don't mind looking at her. Do I have to listen too?:yikes:

Robert-The-Rambler
06-01-2011, 08:11 AM
I don't mind looking at her. Do I have to listen too?:yikes:

Among other things and it doesn't cost a dime; just savy web surfing. So pop tarts like Katy Perry truly have no value when there are other means to get what she is trying so hard to sell.

dean_martin
06-01-2011, 05:26 PM
If you're the least bit interested in Glen Campbell check out the excellent live version of Gentle on My Mind on Legends of Country Music: Best of Austin City Limits.

Smokey
06-01-2011, 05:31 PM
...Glen didn't write Rhinestone Cowboy. It was a guy named Larry Weiss, nor did he write Wichita Lineman (Jimmy Webb), By the Time I Get to Phoenix (Jimmy Webb), Galveston (Jimmy Webb) and Gentle on My Mind (John Hartford). He made piles of money as a (yikes!) cover artist.

Lets not forget that Glen did cover song "Every Which Way You can" for Clint Eastwood film of same title. He sing it at end of the movie in a bar scene.

Worf101
06-02-2011, 05:55 AM
Once popular music became available on record there's always been schizms. And eventually it became a kinda "pecking order" if you will.
At the Top: Writers, producers, arrangers - think Quincy Jones, Brian Wilson etc...

Next Tier: Singer Song writers, people who could write but not necessarily arrange think Curtis Mayfield, Smokey etc... They had beautiful ideas but needed accomplished producer/arrangers to flesh out their visions. Mayhaps the Beatles fall into this category.

Songwriters: All they do is write hit songs for others. Carol King in her Brill Building days Laura Nyro to a lesser extent.

Next Tier: Musicians, folks that didn't write, arrange or sing but could play the hell out of anything they touched. James Jamerson and all the Funk Brothers, Muscle Shoals boys etc..

Performers: Folks that can't write, play an instrument nor produce or arrange but who can sell a song and make it their own. Sinatra, Elvis, etc...

Manufactured Idols: Flotsam and jetsam, here today gone this afternoon. The leave no mark. One Hit Wonders and most boy bands.

This is how I see them and rank them. I may not be famous but I'm proud to be in the first category.

Worf