Glen Campbell dead

[Eleazar]

I think this is my first RIP thread.

[Eleazar]

Glen Campbell, 'Rhinestone Cowboy' singer, dead at 81
Peter Cooper, For The Tennessean

Glen Travis Campbell brought country music to new audiences. He found success as a session musician before embarking on a solo career that included smashes “Gentle On My Mind,” “Galveston,” “Wichita Lineman” and “Rhinestone Cowboy” and that landed him in the Country Music Hall of Fame.

On Tuesday, the following statement was posted on his official website: "It is with the heaviest of hearts that we announce the passing of our beloved husband, father, grandfather, and legendary singer and guitarist, Glen Travis Campbell, at the age of 81, following his long and courageous battle with Alzheimer's disease."

Campbell, 81, was born on Apr. 22, 1936 in Delight, Arkansas, the seventh son of a seventh son in a farming family.

"I spent the early parts of my life looking at the north end of a southbound mule and it didn't take long to figure out that a guitar was a lot lighter than a plow handle," he said in a late 1970s press bio.

Each member of Campbell's family played guitar, and he received a $5 Sears & Roebuck guitar when he was 4 years old. By 6, he was a prodigy, internalizing music that ranged from simple country to sophisticated jazz. As a teenager, he dropped out of school in the 10th grade, left Arkansas and played in a New Mexico-based band led by his uncle, Dick Bills. He also married first wife Diane Kirk, though that marriage lasted fewer than three years.


While playing an Albuquerque club called the Hitching Post, Campbell met Billie Nunley, who soon became his second wife. The newlyweds left for California in 1960, riding to Los Angeles in a 1957 Chevrolet with $300 and a small trailer full of meager belongings. Mr. Campbell found work playing in rock groups including The Champs, a band that included Jim Seals and Dash Crofts, who would later become the hit-making duo Seals & Crofts.

Campbell's guitar acumen and versatility made him an essential player on Los Angeles' thriving recording scene in the 1960s, and he contributed to sessions for Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Rick Nelson, The Mamas and The Papas, Merle Haggard and many more. Campbell couldn’t read music, but he quickly became a respected, first-call player. He played on Elvis Presley’s “Viva Las Vegas,” The Monkees’ “Im’ a Believer,” Frank Sinatra’s “Strangers in the Night” and more. He played 12-string guitar on the Beach Boys’ “Sloop John B.,” and toured with the Beach Boys in 1965, as a replacement for the band’s troubled and reclusive leader, Brian Wilson.

Campbell was invited to join the Beach Boys as a full-time member in 1965, but he declined that opportunity. By then, he was set on establishing a solo career of his own.

After recording a minor hit in 1961 with "Turn Around - Look at Me" for small, independent Crest Records, Campbell had signed with Capitol Records, releasing "Big Bluegrass Special" by "The Green River Boys Featuring Glen Campbell" in late 1962. His early albums received little in the way of attention or acclaim, but he broke into the mainstream in 1967, at first with the Top 20 country hit “Burning Bridges” but most notably with a nimble version of his friend John Hartford's drifter's masterpiece, "Gentle On My Mind."

“I still might run in silence, tears of joy might stain my face and the summer sun might burn me ‘til I’m blind,” Campbell sang, in a smooth, clear voice, with twang-less diction a broadcaster would envy. “But not to where I cannot see you walkin’ on the backroads, by the rivers flowing gentle on my mind.”

"Gentle On My Mind" did not ascend to the top of the "Billboard" country charts, but it was performing rights organization BMI's most-played song of 1969 and 1970. In 1999, BMI ranked “Gentle” as the second most-played country song of the century, and the 16th most-played song of the century in any genre.

...

http://www.tennessean.com/story/ente...sic/550274001/

[Iowanian]

the 1980s called and said "that should have been ours!"

Rhinestone Cowboy..... I ran around the farms singing that when I was a little kid...before I knew about the coke and Ike-Turner of Tanya Tucker stuff.

[KCUnited]

[Red Dawg]

C-ya Glenn. Peace out.

[siberian khatru]

I'm a longtime fan, especially of his stuff with Jimmy Webb. "Wichita Lineman" is one of my all-time favorite songs.

RIP

[BucEyedPea]

Originally Posted by KCUnited

O.M.G! That's not very nice.

Though it is funny.

[T-post Tom]

[BucEyedPea]

RIP Glenn.

[BlackOp]

I saw this thread was listed as a "prayer request"...isn't it a day too late?

RIP Earl Campbell...I always loved you like a son.

[srvy]

Made great music one heck of a guitar player, May he RIP.

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by Iowanian

the 1980s called and said "that should have been ours!"

Rhinestone Cowboy..... I ran around the farms singing that when I was a little kid...before I knew about the coke and Ike-Turner of Tanya Tucker stuff.

I don't know how many times I've listened to this as a little kid I know it's one of my first song memories.

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by Iowanian

Rhinestone Cowboy..... I ran around the farms singing that when I was a little kid...

That was my cousin's JAM. He's within a month in age of me, and almost as soon as he could talk he was belting out that refrain.

And speaking of Tanya, my sis and I later used to tease him with a parody of Delta Dawn we made up that fit his name into the lyrics.

[LiveSteam]

RIP La Boeuf..You was some Texas Ranger

[srvy]