Meet Glen Campbell
Capitol
Hired guitar slinger, king of countrypolitan, TV and movie star. Campbell, like Gene Autry, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, parlayed musical popularity into TV (“The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour”) and movie (“True Grit”) appearances that fueled sales (47 million albums). But his last Top 10 country song was 20 years ago; since then, except for a few gospel records in the ’90s, his output has been spotty.
So it’s good to see the 72-year-old back in action — on his old label, no less — with this hip set of rock covers supported by players from power pop (Jason Falkner and Roger Manning Jr. of Jellyfish); pop funk (Wendy Melvoin of Wendy & Lisa); alt rock (Chris Chaney of Jane’s Addiction); jazz (session monsters Vinnie Colaiuta and Luis Conte); and country (studio musicians George Doering and Marty Rifkin).
Campbell reportedly was given a list of 100 songs by producer Julian Raymond (the Wallflowers, Rosanne Cash, Fastball, Shawn Mullins), from which the tracklist was drawn. With all the banjo, pedal steel, strings and horns, it still sounds like classic John Hartford/Jimmy Webb-era Campbell — almost as if he’d woken up from 40 years’ suspended animation and started interpreting the best of the songs he’d missed.
Hey, maybe that’s exactly what happened!
Tracks
1. Sing (Travis)
2. Walls (Tom Petty)
3. Angel Dream (Tom Petty)
4. Times Like These (Foo Fighters)
5. These Days (Jackson Browne)
6. Sadly Beautiful (The Replacements)
7. All I Want Is You (U2)
8. Jesus (Velvet Underground)
9. Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) (Green Day)
10. Grow Old With Me (John Lennon)
Total time: 33:41
External links
artist’s website
amazon.com
iTunes Store
