Glen Campbell

 Glen Campbell was born in the town of Delight, Arkansas in April, 1936 to a poor share cropper family.   He was one of many children. From an early age, he loved music and showed great talent, particularly at playing the guitar. He had his first guitar when he was about 5.

In the 1950s’s he joined his uncle’s small time country band and then formed one of his own.

In 1960 he moved to California to become a session musician, and became part of a group known as the Wrecking Crew, who played on recordings by the most famous and brilliant singers, such as Frank Sinatra, Elvis, Bobby Darin and many more.  He was such a talented musician that he could always find work.

He made connections through this work and eventually became a solo singer…He had a smooth sweet voice and as the 60s’ progressed he had a string of hits. It was what some call “soft” country pop, and many of them achieved success in the pop charts.  They included Rhinestone Cowboy, Dreams of the Everyday Housewife, Southern Nights, Gentle on my Mind, and By the Time I Get to Phoenix.  One of his biggest hits was Galveston, which was popular with the troops in Vietnam at the time.  His talent at playing multiple instruments and his songs made him a fortune.  He had his own TV show, and gave a helping hand to other singers such as Jerry Reed and later Alan Jackson.

But increasingly in the 1970s he turned to cocaine and alcohol, and went through a series of marriages.   He later said that as a session musician, he was working too hard to use drugs, but later, he became addicted.

He was difficult and sometimes violent and he had an affair with Tanya Tucker which made headlines in the tabloids.

He had some success as an actor, particularly in the John Wayne classic True Grit, but as the 70s went on, the hits dried up. He abused cocaine all the more and it began to take a toll on his health and his personal life.

In 1982, he married his fourth wife, who helped him to get off drugs.  He had a religious conversion, started a new family (he had 8 children in all), and was clean for some years but relapsed very publicly some years ago, when he was arrested for drunk driving.  He said that he wasn’t drunk but that he had been “over served.”

However he checked into Betty Ford and got clean again.  But he was beginning to forget things, and his family were worried about his health.  He eventually was diagnosed as having Alzheimer’s disease.  He went on singing as long as he could, though he had trouble remembering lyrics.  He could still play and seemed to remember chords and music.  Like most country singers, the passion for his work was his life.  As long as he could go on singing and communicating with his fans, he struggled to do so.  Backed by some of his children, he did a series of farewell tours.  However, he eventually had to give up, and in 2014 went into a facility to be cared for.  He has grown worse, and is now very ill and in the last stages of his disease.