Glen Campbell paid his dues while trying to make it in the music business. He took a lot of bad jobs and he took a lot of good jobs. He was one of the top session guitarists in the 1960s, even known as the "unofficial" seventh Beach Boy. The work he did in the studio alone was Rock 'N Roll Hall of Fame worthy.
And so when the opportunity came along to record a song he heard that he could relate to, he jumped on it.
You see, Campbell's life growing up in Delight, Ark., wasn't easy. He was the seventh of 12 children and the son of a sharecropper. His Uncle Boo taught him how to play guitar and when he finally got to be old enough, Campbell left Delight and headed for Albquerque, N.M., to play with his uncle in a band called Dick Bills and the Sandia Mountain Boys. When he wasn't pickin' guitar and banjo with the band, Campbell was working at his uncle's radio station and doing a children's show on local television station KOB.
By 1958, Campbell had his own band, The Western Wranglers, but while it gave him satisfaction to play, it wasn't enough. And so by 1960, he and his second wife, Billie, packed up and headed for the big time in Los Angeles.
It was there that Campbell began the agonizing procedure of connecting with a record company in the City of Angels. To help alleviate the troubles that could come financially, Billie took a job as a teller at a local bank to help make ends meet. Early on, Campbell caught a break when he was invited to join a group called The Champs. It was two years after their one huge hit, "Tequila," but Campbell jumped on the opportunity. His work between the Champs and in the studio got him a very good reputation in Southern California, and so he was asked to join a group that was being formed by producer Phil Spector to create his famed "Wall of Sound." Campbell agreed and became a charter member of The Wrecking Crew as a guitarist.
For as good a singer as Campbell was, he was a better guitarist. His work got him to studios and play for such artists as Frank Sinatra, Ricky Nelson, Bobby Darin, Dean Martin, Nat "King" Cole, Ricky Nelson, Jan and Dean, The Byrds and even Elvis Presley.
Taking notice of the work he was doing was Beach Boys leader Brian Wilson. Wilson would commonly call in The Wrecking Crew to help be the background music to the group's vocals. And so impressed was Wilson of Campbell's work that he asked him if he'd like to go on tour with the band. He accepted and for three months in early 1965, Campbell sat in for Wilson on tour. In 1966, Wilson asked Campbell to play guitar and sing falsetto vocals on what would be the group's famous album, "Pet Sounds."
And that work with the Beach Boys may have helped Campbell reach the goal of being a solo star. But it was tough. Again, he struggled to find the right material that fit him. In 1965, he nearly scored his first Top 40 hit with Buffy Saint-Marie's composition "Universal Soldier," peaking at No. 45. The song was about individual responsibility for war, but Campbell had a totally different view of things, saying, "People who are advocating burning draft cards should be hung."
Meanwhile, Campbell was making a mark on the television show Star Route, hosted by Rod Cameron. He later became a regular on the shows Shindig! and Hollywood Jamboree.
Still, things weren't peachy for Campbell. Signed for four years to Capitol Records, Campbell was still not getting anywhere as a singer and the label was ready to drop him. That's when fate stepped in. He partnered with a producer at the company named Al De Lory, who saw potential in Campbell after seeing him work and slave for years. They collaborated on the song "Burning Bridges," and it hit the Top 20 on the country music chart.
Then came the game-changer – they took a shot at a John Hartford composition called "Gentle On My Mind." With Campbell's distinct banjo as the backdrop, the song made it to the Top 30 on the country chart and peaked at No. 62 on the Hot 100. That recognition led to another meeting – this time, the meeting was with a 21-year-old songwriter named Jimmy Webb. He submitted to De Lory and Campbell a song titled "By The Time I Get To Phoenix."
This time around, "By The Time I Get To Phoenix" made Campbell a Top 40 solo artist. It would get him to No. 25, while it almost became Campbell's first No. 1 country hit, peaking at No. 2 in late November 1967. Two singles later, "I Wanna Live" became his second Top 40 pop hit, peaking at No. 36, but would be Campbell's first No. 1 country hit, spending three weeks at the top. An established songwriter, John D. Loudermilk of "Indian Reservation" fame, wrote that one.
His next Top 40 pop hit was with Chris Gantry's "Dreams Of The Everyday Housewife," which got to No. 32 pop and No. 3 on the country chart.
That opened the door for the re-release of "Gentle On My Mind." In early November 1968, it finally hit the Top 40, peaking at No. 39.
But the ball started to roll in 32-year-old Campbell's career when he and De Lory got a hold of another Webb song titled "Wichita Lineman." It hit home about the loneliness of the lineman working odd hours to keep things going electrically in the area. It became a No. 1 country hit and this time, earned Campbell his first solo Top 10 hit on the pop chart, getting to No. 3 by January 1969.
That would be followed up by another Webb piece, the powerful "Galveston" about the wonderment of coming home from an unpopular war. It got to No. 4 on the pop chart and spent three weeks at No. 1 on the country chart.
Eight more Top 40 pop hits would follow, including the Oscar-nominated theme to the John Wayne movie 'True Grit." In late 1970, Campbell scored another Top 10 pop hit with his remake of Conway Twitty's "It's Only Make Believe," then followed that up with a No. 31 hit remake of Roy Orbison's "Dream Baby (How Long Must I Dream)." On top of that, Campbell finally got his own variety show in January 1969 at the beginning of the height of his success on CBS called The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour. It was a Top 20 show his first two seasons.
But the hits stopped coming. Campbell released over a dozen singles between 1971-74 and none of those hit the Top 40. He still was making a mark on the country music scene and that allowed him to stay with Capitol Records while he was trying to find a pop hit-making identity again. His TV show would be canceled in June 1972.
He kept himself out there thanks to doing numerous variety shows for the likes of Johnny Carson, Dinah Shore, Redd Fox, Mike Douglas and Merv Griffin. He made a 1974 television movie called Strange Homecoming with Robert Culp and 12-year-old Leif Garrett.
And Campbell continued to maintain a touring schedule. While on tour in Australia, he was listening to the radio one day and heard a song for the first time by the man who wrote it, Larry Weiss. Suddenly, a song he heard for the first time began to appeal to him. It was called "Rhinestone Cowboy."
Campbell began to play the song in his off-time. His goal: To surprise Capitol Records with a song he learned from the original that he'd like to record.
When he got back to the states, he was summoned to the Los Angeles offices of Capitol Records by vice-president Al Coury. Campbell was ready to pitch this song he heard on the radio in Australia as the next single he'd like to do. But Coury, who had suggested Capitol release "Whatever Gets You Thru The Night" as John Lennon's next single a year before and saw it become the ex-Beatle's first No. 1 solo hit, had a surprise that Campbell wasn't ready for.
He beat Campbell to the punch -- he told Campbell he heard the same song, "Rhinestone Cowboy, by Weiss on the radio and immediately thought of him, the man who paid a multitude of debts in his career to finally shine, for recording the song!
Campbell was dumbfounded, but after collecting his thoughts, agreed with Coury. A week later, Campbell was in the studio doing Weiss' song with his permission. Song co-producer Dennis Lambert played the piano opening and an act called Sid Sharp and the Boogie Symphony played the orchestral strings behind Campbell's vocal, one that he accentuated by overdubbing it to provide the harmony with his own lead voice because he felt so strong about Weiss' lyrics. Campbell would say later on that "Rhinestone Cowboy" was the best song he ever recorded.
His "unveiling" of "Rhinestone Cowboy" came on a national telethon in April 1975. One person watching the performance was Paul Drew, the programmer of music at radio station KHJ in Los Angeles. So impressed with what he heard, he called Capitol about getting a copy of the song for his station. So Capitol sent Drew an "acetate," or a "one-off" record. The company didn't think as highly about the song as Drew ... or Campbell for that matter. But once it got on the airwaves in Los Angeles, the phones lit up requesting Campbell's "new" single, which had not been released yet.
After weeks of nagging, Captiol finally relented and released "Rhinestone Cowboy" as a single in early May 1975. The song made the Hot 100 at No. 81 on May 31, 1975, then began climbing to No. 66, No. 53 and debuted in the Top 40 at No. 38 on June 21, 1975. It zoomed to No. 30 the next week, then got to No. 24 and then to No. 20 by July 12. But it started to slow. It moved to No. 19 the following week, then got to No. 16 after that and then No. 14 the week after.
While that was going on, country radio began to send the song up the chart. And with that being a bit of a factor, "Rhinestone Cowboy," like the old and tired man who paid dues time and time again to survive, found a second wind. On August 9, 1975, "Rhinestone Cowboy" launched up seven places to land at No. 7, while it entered the Top 5 on the country chart. Again, though, "Rhinestone Cowboy" slowed down. It moved up one notch to No. 6, then another notch to No. 5, losing its bullet that signified its strength on the charts. But as it got to No. 5, it became Campbell's first No. 1 country hit since "Galveston" six years earlier.
Though it dropped to No. 2 on the country chart behind the Twitty/Loretta Lynn duet, "Feelins'," it got another wind and moved up two places to No. 3.
Then in its 15th week on the Hot 100, "Rhinestone Cowboy" did the unthinkable -- it hit No. 1 on the pop chart the week of September 6, 1975. It took the perfect descriptive song of Campbell's career to give the 39-year-old veteran of the music scene his very first No. 1 hit. And while it held for a second week at No. 1 the next week, "Rhinestone Cowboy" knocked "Feelins'" out of the top spot on the country chart, giving Campbell simultaneous No. 1 hits on the pop and country charts, something not done since Jimmy Dean did it in November 1961 with "Big Bad John." By the end of 1975, "Rhinestone Cowboy" would finish as the No. 2 song of the year behind only the Captain & Tennille's "Love Will Keep Us Together."
"Rhinestone Cowboy" became Campbell's embodiment the rest of his career. He was that guy Weiss wrote about in the song. Though Campbell would have five more Top 40 pop hits, one of those, the Allen Toussaint composition "Southern Nights," would be his second No. 1 hit a week after his 41st birthday in April 1977.
Campbell continued to entertain fans for decades after "Rhinestone Cowboy" until finding out he had Alzheimer's disease in June 2011. He continued to tour and make many fans happy until finally, it was time to stop. But before he did that, he put on a Tour de force performance at the 2012 Grammy Awards in which he performed "Rhinestone Cowboy" to a packed crowd at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
Though Larry Weiss wrote and recorded it, the song for over 40 years has belonged to Glen Campbell. It meant just about everything to him.
Weiss didn't mind one bit, either. Little did he know, he was writing about the man who would make him famous for his song.
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