“I’m not a country singer,” Glen Campbell often said. “I’m a country boy who sings.”
Campbell, who died at 81 on Tuesday after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease, became one of pop music’s biggest crossover stars with ’60s and ’70s singles like “Gentle on My Mind,” “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” “Wichita Lineman,” “Galveston,” “Southern Nights” and “Rhinestone Cowboy.”
Whether performing songs penned by ‘60s chart titan Jimmy Webb or indie-rocker Paul Westerberg, Campbell played and sang with an effortless plaintiveness that made him a model for younger generations of artists like Keith Urban, Vince Gill and Brad Paisley, who, like him, felt comfortable moving between the genres of country and pop music. He had a boyish handsomeness that made his transition from the recording studio into world of television and film seem like a foregone conclusion. The records he made with Webb as writer and Al DeLory as producer practically defined country-pop crossover during the late ‘60s, and “Rhinestone Cowboy” and “Southern Nights” did the same in the ‘70s. Campbell’s recording spanned six decades, leading to his induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2005.
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