Glen Campbell

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Fire-medic

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http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/08/entertainment/glen-campbell-dies/index.html

What talent, another one in that great band, upstairs. Wichita Lineman has one of the most-haunting sounds. From his website:



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Glen Campbell has always felt a divine touch in his life, as if he were given a gift he didn’t earn, but was allowed to use to make people happy and forget their worries for a time.
How else do you explain his life, one of the most extraordinary rags to riches stories in popular music history? The 12th child and seventh son of a dirt poor sharecropper born in the depths of the depression on April 22, 1936, Campbell drowned when he was a toddler in the Little Missouri River near his family’s Arkansas home. His lips were blue when he was pulled from the river and those who rescued him believed he was gone. But he lived miraculously after his brother Lyndell resuscitated him, and Campbell always suspected it was because of this gift.

It wasn’t long after this that Campbell’s father recognized his talent and bought him a $5 guitar from Sears & Roebuck at the age of four. He quickly showed himself to be a prodigy under the tutelage of his Uncle Boo. How could the two not be related? For it was clear Campbell was a special talent, so much so that he broke the poverty cycle and began to earn a living with his guitar as a teenager and went on to become one of the most respected, revered and popular performers of the rock ‘n’ roll era.

From his time as a groundbreaking musician for Elvis, Frank Sinatra, The Beach Boys and many others in the archetypical backing band The Wrecking Crew to his decade atop the charts to the grace he showed as he closed his career while fighting Alzheimer’s disease, there are few artists who have touched as many lives as the Rhinestone Cowboy. And left them smiling.

By the time Campbell won his sixth Grammy Award in 2014 for his final recording, “I’m Not Going to Miss You,” he had won most every award and achieved every milestone available to musicians. One of the best-selling solo male artists in U.S. chart history, Campbell released more than 70 albums, selling 50 million copies with more than 80 songs charting. He is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Musicians Hall of Fame. He won the Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year, twice won the Academy of Country Music’s Album of the Year award and was named Male Vocalist of the Year by both. In 2012, he was bestowed the Grammy’s most prestigious honor, a Lifetime Achievement Award.

He arrived in 1960 at a glorious time in pop music history and within a year got a publishing company job writing songs and recording demos. His demo work led him to his job as a guitarist in The Wrecking Crew, the group of studio musicians who worked with Phil Spector to create his influential Wall of Sound production style. His work during this period would have been enough to secure his place in rock history. Alongside musicians like Leon Russell and drummers Hal Blaine and Earl Palmer, he played on an astounding 586 sessions in 1963 alone. That’s him creating unforgettable guitar parts on the Beach Boys’ landmark Pet Sounds album, Frank Sinatra’s “Strangers in the Night,” the Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” and the Monkees’ “I’m a Believer,” not to mention hits by Elvis Presley, Bobby Darin, Lou Rawls, Ricky Nelson, Merle Haggard and Bobby Vee. And you’ll also find him among backing a who’s who list of artists with the Crew as the house band on the legendary “T.A.M.I. Show.”
 
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RIP Mr. Campbell. You were a legend sir!

If you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor and watch the documentary called The Wrecking Crew. The man could play ANYTHING. Legendary in the studio.
 
My father died of Alzheimers not but a month ago. Both he and I thoroughly enjoyed the music of Glen Campbell. I recall it playing on the old transistor when we were fishing together when I was a kid. The Documentary "I'll Be Me" hits home for me.
 
I thoroughly enjoyed the video, that was a great production. Steve Earle is down here in south FL now, he's carrying on the tradition. When he was just a kid, he was heavily-influenced by a troubador who died before his time, a friend of the family who kindly taught him a bit, and whom I had the pleasure of meeting over 45 years ago. It was Townes Van Zandt. His song, "Quicksilver Dreams of Maria" is just a beautiful melody, and his voice was perfect for the country music idiom. Unfortunately Townes was an alcoholic, and it killed him. So Steve Earle is one to carry-on, and his muse was this shy, quiet singer who wrote heartfelt songs, and sang them the same way:
https://townesvanzandt.com/

Here's another one that isn't a happy one, it's about two down and out people who find each other even if for a brief time:" Marie."
https://youtu.be/pXJPVRw3hmk
 
Amazing Man! He will live Forever through his accomplishments in life....
 

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