Discussion of the Week: older Glen better than the younger?

[Cowpoke]

Thanks for all your replies. I enjoyed reading them. But... what about Glen as an entertainer and Glen as a guitar player? How did Glen mature in those aspects of his career?

[Dee]

Great post, Randy. Thx. You "nailed" it for me: "Glen's strength was not about his voice range, but in his ability to sing from the heart."

(All this talk about "nails" -- you, Cowpoke, jay, and now me. What can this mean? lol)

You raised a good point about other artists who were not able to sustain their greatness as they aged.

In my mind, Glen is on the same or similar level as Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Sting, Rod Stewart, Vince Gill, Kris Kristofferson, and Paul McCartney, to name a few of the rare artists in my personal songbook who had/have had successful long-time careers. Just my opinion.

We would appreciate seeing the GC goodtime hour video of Glen singing For the Good Times and Glen and Shorty's version when you have time to post these two videos.

Coincidentally, Jimmy Webb talks about Glen's voice in an interview published today:

Webb worked many times with Glen Campbell over the years. Of all the recordings that the country singer made of Webb's songs, Wichita Lineman remains his favourite. "It was a perfect marriage between a song and a voice," he says. "It's amazing today to listen to that record and realise how highly pitched his voice is because all of our voices have dropped in the intervening years. But he sung so high and he was such a smooth singer and there was a note - it was very plaintive, almost like a dying fall - to his intonation, to things that are almost indescribable, almost intangible, but I don't think that the record has lost any gravitas since it was made.

"You put it on and it still sounds as though that song and that singer were meant to be together."

From:
Music interview: Jimmy Webb, the songwriter to stars who turned down Elvis
Yorkshire Post (England) - April 3, 2015

I will post the article link and a couple more quotes from this article under the topic "Glen Campbell and Jimmy Webb". The story of Jimmy turning down Elvis relates back to Glen and a couple of other artists.

[Randy]

Totally agree Dee,,, Glen maintained his greatness like very few while he aged. I was thinking about posting the GC goodtime hour video of him singing For the Good times vs the one he did with his brother Shorty as an example of how I preferred maybe the deeper sounding Glen, but that wouldn't be true. There is no preference, as I stated earlier, that Phoenix at the CMA show, or ACM show, (I forget which it was) was so great and just enforces the notion that I was always a fan , no matter which era I listened , and Glen's strength was not about his voice range, but in his ability to sing from the heart.

[Dee]

Thanks for everyone’s input so far and for your absolutely perfect examples. Keep ‘em coming!
This was a difficult question for me to answer.
To try to answer it, makes me feel like the mom with more than one child who has been asked which is your favorite child (and answers: I love my children equally!).
This week, I started listening to a few of my favorite Glen Campbell songs from each decade, starting in 1962 with “Too Late to Worry, Too Blue to Cry”.
It was fascinating to hear Glen’s voice change over the years; I had never really listened to his singing from this perspective.
I wasn’t able to choose one decade of songs or vocals over another, not older vs. younger.
What struck me was that Glen put as much heart and soul (and seemingly life experience) in everything from “Too Late to Worry, Too Blue to Cry” to “The Long Walk Home” and “I’m Not Gonna Miss You”. So even though his voice changed throughout his career, the appeal of his voice (and songs) for me has never changed.
What has changed for me is that the orchestration of the Al de Lory and Lambert and Potter productions (and others) is just too heavy sounding at times. In fact, some of these productions sound very outdated to me now. Too many strings, backup vocalists, etc. I would much prefer to hear the same songs but with just Glen and his guitar. Or Glen and a band. Or Glen on guitar and Jimmy Webb on piano.
The South Dakota Symphony is the exception for me.
Love this discussion!
Dee

[Elusive Butterfly]

Hi Cowpoke. This is always a current issue to debate. When was Glen's voice at it's best? Well, I guess to most devoted fans, the early years will be the period, where Glen's voice peaked. These years are the period where we connect with the "typical" and real voice of Glen Campbell. But...but. As the years went by and Glen had his rough times, with abuse of more kinds than one, his voice strangely enough didn't suffer, or spoil, in any way. It might even have grown better, in some people's opinion. It clearly aged. But it also got deeper and richer. Which made him perfect for the crooning songs as "Crazy", " A lady Like You" and "All The Way". And again, as he reached his 60's, he re-gained his tenor-like lighter voice, because of smoke stop and booze stop. Glen made so many wonderful recordings in the 80's, that I love. Precisely because of his matured and richer voice. I'll post a link to one of my favourites. But still......where I completely "loose myself" and just sort of float away, will be, when I listen to Glen's songs from the very start and up through the 60's and 70's. This specific video you posted Cowpoke "By The Time I get To Phoenix", just blows me away. There's nothing like it. But Glen can reach my inner soul, at any age of his. As with this masterpiece: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdrZlPXky_E" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Cowpoke]

That IS a brilliant performance Randy. Again, it also shows how Glen, in front of an audience of his peers, like Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash, pulls out all the stops. No one in that room is able to sing like this. But, was Glen himself able to top it, in later years?

[Randy]

I love this topic, because regardless of what I think about offering (and I will later about preferring Older) videos as comparsion, I am blown totally away by this youthful performance, that has been up on YT and then down, and I'm hoping it stays.

[Cowpoke]

Well, I am very curious to hear what you guys all have to say about this subject! For me, I am not sure yet. In my mind, the golden era of Glen's voice is from the late sixties to the late seventies.

That's were you can hear spectacular vocal performances like "If You Go Away" which we discussed previously.

Around the time of the Highwayman album, Glen's voice started to change, become a little lower. However by the early 80s Glen's voice had settled into another great era, let's call it the silver era of Glen's voice. That's when he sang like this.



After this performance (not on the part of the video I uploaded) Johnny Carson tells Glen that he is singing better than ever!

From the late 80s, early 90s on Glen's voice started to change again, he actually was able to hit all the high notes again, maybe caused by a change in his lifestyle (he not only stopped drinking, but also smoking). Maybe not as ultra smooth as in the seventies, but on the other hand, his performances gained something that's hard for me to express. They became more... understanding? Deeper? Emotional?



This development actually actually continued up till Glen's last recordings. Just listen to Glen's 2010 version of "This Land Is Your Land". In a way, it's the performance of a lifetime.

https://soundcloud.com/uncommon-folk/th ... -land-glen" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And that's just Glen's singing!