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Glen Campbell is drinking cranberry juice, sucking on an ice cube and singing the praises of electrolytes. Glen Campbell
keeps friendly airsBy Tim Ryan
tryan@starbulletin.com"Gotta keep hydrated down here," he says of his Phoenix, Ariz., home in his easy Southern drawl. "There's lots of space and great weather down here. I love it."
After nearly four decades in the music business, Campbell, 65, seems as friendly and unjaded as the first time he hosted the "Smothers Brothers Show" in 1968.
"I was scared to death 'cuz I had never been the main guy for anything," says the singer-guitarist, who performs tomorrow and Saturday with Honolulu Symphony Pops at the Blaisdell Concert Hall. "I felt like the lead duck going south, but at least they can change positions. But Tommy (Smothers) said it was easy being host 'cuz all I had to do was read the cue cards."
Campbell did so well attracting audiences that the network gave him his own variety show, "The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour," which ran through 1972.
These days, the sharecropper's son from Billstown, Ark. -- and one of 12 children -- spends as much time with his family or on the golf course as he does performing.
"Golf is so much harder than playing guitar," he says, "because it's always different. Your body doesn't function the same every day -- either that, or my brain doesn't."
Campbell learned how to play guitar at age 4, after his dad bought one for $5 out of the Sears catalog.
Performance with the Honolulu Pops; also with Pauline Wilson; Matt Catingub conducting Glen Campbell
Where: Blaisdell Concert Hall
When: 7:30 p.m. tomorrow and Saturday
Tickets: $15, $25, $30, $40 and $55 at the Blaisdell box office, Ticket Plus and military ticket outlets
Call: 792-2000
"We were so poor that me and my three younger brothers had to sleep four across so the big 'uns could sleep long ways," he said.
At 14, Campbell left home to pursue music, starting with a three-piece band in Houston. Then he moved to Albuquerque and joined a Western swing band led by his uncle, Dick Bills, playing everything from Sons of the Pioneers songs to Jimmy Dorsey tunes.
"I loved all kinds of music," he said. "I first played church music, but I loved the Grand Ole Opry, and got into jazz guitar stylings of Django Reinhardt and Barney Kessel."
When Campbell hit Hollywood at 24, he quickly found studio work as a guitarist, touring with the Champs, who had the 1958 hit single "Tequila." Campbell had all the studio session work he could want, playing on records by Frank Sinatra, Nat "King" Cole, Merle Haggard, Elvis Presley, Ray Charles and the Mamas and the Papas.
In 1965 he toured as a member of the Beach Boys during the absence of Brian Wilson, playing in Hawaii with Tom Moffatt as promoter.
His breakthrough under his own name came in 1967 when he made a hit out of a song that was all wrong for pop. "Gentle on My Mind" -- with its rambling lyric, no chorus and folk-country feel -- went on to become his signature song.
Many of Campbell's hits were the result of his association with songwriter Jimmy Webb. "The man is a poet," Campbell says. "He writes a lot of chord progressions married to a great melody.
"The first time I heard the lyrics to 'By the Time I Get to Phoenix,' I cried because it was about going back home, and I had been on the road so long that the song touched every nerve in my body."
Campbell made history by winning a Grammy in both country and pop categories in 1967 for "Gentle on My Mind" (country) and "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" (pop).
Campbell's favorite song, also written by Webb, was the 1969 hit "Wichita Lineman," which he followed with "Galveston." In 1975, Campbell struck gold again with "Rhinestone Cowboy," a song he calls "pretty autobiographical.
"The line 'There's been a load of compromisin' on the road to my horizon' rung so true with me," he said. "Before I made it, my ex-wife, God bless her soul, worked at a bank to keep us in business. She made a lot of sacrifices."
Campbell also found himself compromising. "There were a lot of songs I agreed to sing that I didn't like because of the pressure (from record executives), and doing gigs I didn't want to do," he said.
He was able to wrest control with his 1977 hit "Southern Nights." The song originally had horns and female background singers. Campbell removed these and had the recording remastered. "I knew what I wanted in that song and decided to take back control."
The Hawaii concerts will be much like his recent PBS special featuring his greatest hits, a Beach Boys medley and "MacArthur Park." The footage will be released this month on DVD and videocassette.
Though a seasoned performer, Campbell's voice still carries the tone of a modest country boy. "It is who I am," he said. "If you grow up in a happy home, you pretty much stay happy one way or the other."
At this stage in his career, he says he has no special professional yearnings.
"I guess I would like to perform with Pavarotti or Michael Bolton," he said. 'Other than that, well ... I know, I know ... I'm gonna be golfing in Hawaii, and I sure would like to make par."
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