Eight years ago today, the world lost Glen Campbell -- the golden-voiced "Rhinestone Cowboy" who bridged country and pop, turning session work into superstardom with hits including "Gentle On My Mind," "Galveston," and "Wichita Lineman." Campbell spent his final years waging what his family called "a long and courageous battle with Alzheimer's disease."
He was 81.
"Had Glen Campbell 'only' played guitar and never voiced a note, he would have spent a lifetime as one of America's most consequential recording musicians," Kyle Young, CEO of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, said in a statement. "Had he never played guitar and 'only' sung, his voice would rank with American music's most riveting, expressive, and enduring. He left indelible marks as a musician, a singer, and an entertainer, and he bravely shared his incalculable talent with adoring audiences even as he fought a cruel and dreaded disease. To all of us who heard and loved his soulful music, he was a delight."
Campbell's career spanned six decades, taking him from a sought-after Los Angeles session guitarist with the famed Wrecking Crew to an international solo star. He had five No. 1 hits on the Billboard country charts, hosted his own network TV variety show, and earned multiple Grammy Awards across both country and pop categories. In 2005, he earned induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Campbell was born on April 22, 1936, in Delight, Ark., the seventh son in a farming family.
"I spent the early parts of my life looking at the north end of a southbound mule, and it didn't take long to figure out that a guitar was a lot lighter than a plow handle," he said in a late 1970s press bio.
Everyone in Campbell's family played guitar. He received a $5 version of the instrument when he was 4 years old. By the age of 6, he could play country and jazz. He dropped out of school in the 10th grade, moved to New Mexico to play in a band led by his uncle, and got married for the first time. Campbell met his second wife at an Albuquerque club called the Hitching Post, and they moved to California in 1960.
He started playing in rock groups, including The Champs, which later became the popular duo Seals & Crofts. In the '60s, Campbell was a sought-after player in the Los Angeles recording scene as part of the session musician collective the Wrecking Crew. He played on sessions for Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Rick Nelson, The Mamas and the Papas, Merle Haggard, and more. Even though Campbell couldn't read music, he was a respected, first-call player who even toured with the Beach Boys in 1965, as a replacement for Brian Wilson.
The famous group even invited him to join as a full-time member in 1965, but Campbell said no in favor of pursuing his own solo career.
While he had had previous releases, Campbell went mainstream in 1967 with his Top 20 country hit "Burning Bridges" and his career-making version of his friend John Hartford's "Gentle On My Mind."
The song didn't go to No. 1, but it was BMI's most-played song of 1969 and 1970. In 1999, BMI reported "Gentle On My Mind" as the second most played country song of the century, and the 16th most played song of the century in any genre.
Then Campbell set his goal even higher-he wanted to be on television.
Campbell's affable stage presence and camera-ready looks made him a natural for television. In early 1968, Campbell won two Grammy Awards for his recording of "Gentle On My Mind" and two more for "By the Time I Get to Phoenix." He got his own television show on CBS.
"I had albums before that, but once the TV show started, everything really took off," Campbell told The Tennessean in 2005. "I used that show to get every country act I could onto television."
Bolstered by the show, Campbell earned his first No. 1 in 1968 with "I Wanna Live" and his first crossover smash, "Wichita Lineman," which topped country and adult contemporary charts and went to No. 3 on the pop charts.
"The change that has come over country music lately is simple," he told TV Guide in 1969. "They're not shuckin' it right off the cob any more. ... I think the public is getting tired of all that crazy acid rock and wants to get back to good melodies. Country music has more impact now, because it's earthy material -- stories of things that happen to everyday people. I call it 'People Music.'"
Campbell started acting in movies, including "True Grit" with John Wayne and "Norwood." His sales began to slide in the 1970s, and CBS canceled his TV show in 1972. He started drinking more, but in 1975, after more than six years without a hit, Campbell made a comeback with "Rhinestone Cowboy."
Two years later, Campbell went to No. 1 with "Southern Nights," his final chart topper. By 1980, he was newly divorced, struggling with cocaine and alcohol, and dating Tanya Tucker. She was 21; he was 44. They were over by the following year, he was lost in addiction, and he met his last wife, Radio City Music Hall Rockette, Kim Woolen.
They were married in 1982, and she was by his side in 2011 when Campbell announced he was suffering from Alzheimer's disease. He also shared plans to release a new album and go on a "Goodbye Tour" while he could still perform.
Campbell played his final Nashville show in early January 2012, performing at the Ryman Auditorium with a band that included three of his children.
The Grammy Awards honored Campbell in February of 2012 with The Band Perry performing "Gentle On My Mind" and Blake Shelton singing "Southern Nights." Campbell sang "Rhinestone Cowboy," with Paul McCartney enthusiastically pumping his fist from the audience.
Campbell played his final show on November 30, 2012. In April 2014, his family confirmed the guitar player was living in a Middle Tennessee memory-care facility. The same month, "I'll Be Me," a documentary about Campbell's final tour, debuted at the Nashville Film Festival. Campbell and Julian Raymond wrote the film's theme, "I'm Not Gonna Miss You." It won the Best Country Song Grammy Award and was nominated for an Academy Award.
Campbell died on August 8, 2017.