Description

In an age where there are so few true hit makers, the breadth of Glen Campbells 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 theatre 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 in his pocket. You cant even make this stuff up.

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 arent supposed to be fans of this kind of thing. But thats how heavy Campbells impact has been. Wichita Lineman, Rhinestone Cowboy, the title track on the Highwaymen album. Its 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 musics 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 Spectors go-to guys) and on albums by the Monkees, Sinatra, Haggard, Dean Martin and a couple hundred others, Campbells 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 hes 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 lifetimes twilight. Like Zevons The Wind or Dylans 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. Its beautiful stuff, and a fitting epilogue to a career thats dazzled like the brightest rhinestones on any mans jacket.