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Your Stories and Memories about Glen

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glenn.thomas
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Re: Your Stories and Memories about Glen

Post by glenn.thomas »

Growing up in Canada in the late 60's / early 70's, Glen was part of my musical life. I will always remember his sign-on during his first
summer replacement of the Smother's Brothers... while playing Gentle on My Mind...he would say part way into it " Hi. I'm Glen Campbell"...
I would copy that when I played the song on my guitar and say to those listening "Hi.. I'm Glenn Thomas"....
His songs had a special quality (mostly written by the great Jimmy Webb) about them that made you feel at home and comfortable.
I never got a chance to attend any concerts but did buy a double live album of his that I cherish to this day. He is and will always be
one of my all-time favourite performers. I wish the extended Campbell family all the best and offer prayers to them. You all are like
family and I thank you for all the wonderful memories I have of Glen's music.


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Cowpoke
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Re: Your Stories and Memories about Glen

Post by Cowpoke »

Again, a great post Robduloc. You have a way of retelling that story which makes me see it in a whole different light.
Would you agree that Glen showed True Grit when he did the Goodbye Tour. Not many artists would have done what he did I think. Some time ago I read an old interview with Glen in which he described how his granddad, when he got sick and could no longer play guitar, never complained one day of his life and took it like it was. And in the interview Glen said he hoped he would do the same, when he would get older. It struck me that Glen did exactly that, some 40 years later.

Maybe Glen didn't always show True Grit throughout his life (nobody does), but at the end of his career he most certainly did.


I'm a carefree, range ridin', driftin' cowpoke...
robduloc
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Re: Your Stories and Memories about Glen

Post by robduloc »

Thank you Dee,

Charles Portis has all the dynamics worked out Rooster Cogburn is living at the edge of the frontier along a small tract of houses and shops, not too many people or inhabitants, a step away from the back door leading to out to an open expanse.

Cogburn feels comfortable among people but not to big of an infestation, he has seen it all in his day,, the bigger cities and bigger brawls, rampant crime and deaths, the Sheriff has paid his dues and found the bigger cities suffocating, the hypocrites double edge standards.

A riverboat is the break off point from the comforts of his small townt, Mattie isn't afraid to jump into the water and follow behind the search party with her horse when the search party attempts to be abandon her because she is a girl.

As the search party watches Mattie and her horse traverse the cold water and sweeping tidal pool Rooster exclaims, "By God, she reminds me of me".

His partner has nothing to add, they may have never seen anything like it before, there is a lot to be said about the children and women who tamed the wild frontier.

Which leads me to wonder, exactly what is True Grit, is it something that you need or use in a highrise or stuck in a cubicle with four walls, I would say yes, but to taste the waters of a clean running brook, and feel the lash of a northern wind biting into your face and hands, eat and drink from a tin pan and cup around a camp fire, making sure to not allow the smoke to rise too high, knowing where there are predators, involves extra sensory, and respect for lay of the land.

Mattie is most refined, at home and on the plain, and will learn to live life on her terms, she only needs time to grow into her new found position, her heroes will see to that.

The sun coming over the hills warming and lighting up the cool pockets of morning shade, wild life coming into play in the sky and on land, rolling hills fiilling your lungs with fresh air on top of a horse, and feeling a part of the fabric of the great outdoors is most prevalent in the composition and arrangement for the song True Grit.

And Glen Campbell gets to be the voice, there is an underlying feel the person singing the song is looking back and remembering by Mattie's example life is to be lived deliberate and fully with every breath.


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Dee
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Re: Your Stories and Memories about Glen

Post by Dee »

Hi, Rob,
Thank you so much for sharing your memories here, so beautifully expressed. A fascinating slice of your life for a long-time Glen fan like me.
Glen Campbell was certainly both the soundtrack of your life, as they say, and a compass for your life journey with his songs, albums, True Grit (the movie and the book), and more woven through your life events.
You have well described the times of that early era of Glen and also what it was like growing up in the sixties.
Glen Campbell helped me in similar ways, by giving me truths to believe in during a time that was a strange mix of the innocent, the new, and the wonderful -- along with terrible tragedies that showed me at a young age that not everything or everybody in the world could be trusted (for example, the assassination of President Kennedy and the Vietnam War). Maybe this is why I likened myself to the Charles Portis character, Mattie Ross. Life didn't stop for her when her father died. Life then began for her because she found the "grit" in herself to follow her heart, move on, take a stand, and take action. We can't change others in our lives, they are what they are, but we can change ourselves and how we respond to them. As you wrote, "life is messy, you can't build a strong foundation on a mud slick incline, and sometimes it takes a Mattie to see where our moral compass is." I believe "Mattie" is the best of all of our inner selves.
Thank you again, Rob, and please keep the memories flowing.
Dee


robduloc
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Re: Your Stories and Memories about Glen

Post by robduloc »

Third Grade, 1967/1968 was a big year for me, it was the first time that I got to stay up past eight to watch TV.

It was the year our family went to the movies and I got to see Bonnie & Clyde, Camelot, Planet of The Apes, 2001 A Space Odyssey and wait for it.... The Greatest Story Ever Told. Very mature adult content.

My first year in Little League, I don't know what was harder trying to catch all those pop fly balls or knocking door to door selling decals for my uniform, more than once somebody had to point out they had already bought and displayed their decal in a side window to show their support.

I like to say that even though I was a child, growing up in the sixties, I was a member of the Establishment, 5 years Little League, 4 years Soccer Club and 1 year YMCA Pee-Wee Football.

I never really cared whether we would win or lose, it was all about the uniform and the smells, the grass stains, leather glove and peppered hard balls.

Growing up in a family with one side of first generation immigrants I never learned the second language- didn't understand or know what was being said half of the time and so I became a mixture of shy and outgoing to garner attention for good or bad.

That's where Glen Campbell comes in, the hurt and great joy for life that were buried in his songs and arrangements awoke something deep in me, the hero worship, I'm sure that I am not the only boy that used to daydream what it was like to be the man pictured on album covers like Glen Campbell Burning Bridges and By The Time I Get To Phoenix.

Glen Campbell help me find my roots.

Time stopped and stood still as I watched Tommy Smothers introduce his two guests and the cameras cut to John Hartford and Glen Campbell performing Gentle On My Mind, my little heart beating with the pulsating rhythm chord changes and meter which reminded me of a floating stream or river.

I was sold, to this day I don't how I manage to drum up the money by the end of third grade I was the proud recipient and owner of the LP's Gentle On My Mind, BYTTIGTP and Hey Little One.

A princely sum for a kid that used to pull weeds in order to ask for an advance on his allowance, LP's which made me think if I should go without the next fix of candy, Slurpees or Comix Books.

And the overall feel of these productions has an interesting side note, Spring of third grade my father announced one night at dinner that I didn't have any Rock and Roll albums and was going to buy Gary Lewis & The Playboys Golden Greats for my birthday, i was at a loss for words, I got The Monkees first album for Christmas and so I was going to have to take my father for his word and wait and see what new musical language lay waiting in store, as it turns out it was all those Leon Russell fueled Gary Lewis recording sessions and what would later prove to be the West Coast Sound and Wrecking Crew.

I was emotionally mixed up after seeing Bonnie & Clyde, Glen Campbell's version of Merle Haggard's The Legend Of Bonnie & Clyde help imbue the couple with humanity.

Glen Campbell A New Place In The Sun was my signature album Summer of '68, it was the first year that we drove down the Washington Coast and visit relatives in San Fransisco, Huntington Beach and Paso Robles.

Naturally by the time we were finished Disneyland, Paso Robles was a major cool down session to reflect, it was the first summer where all I could think of was the man on the front cover of A New Place In The Sun, not just the handsome album picture the main title serving as a signature song, accent on the upbeat and promise for a new day that we're all going build and partake together.

But the pop phenomenon and hero worship got bigger, better and brighter with Wichita Lineman, has anyone ever noticed the dark suntan in addition to the modern clothe style and clean haircut.

Those trips to California every summer were a gift, body surfing is a form of flying and underlying freedom that I haven't felt anywhere else, except listening to music perhaps.

Glen Campbell taught me to read really, images and radio play kept popping up for Wichita Lineman for a number of years, and when True Grit hit the screen I had to run out and buy the Mass Market Paperback Movie-Tie In with pictures of our icon, a watershed year.

That was Fifth Grade 1969/1970 school year, the end of an era I suppose in a lot of ways, we learning a lot of folk songs to sing at school assemblies, the words were printed out and passed among us on ditto sheets for 500 Hundred Miles and Leaving On A Jet Plane, the overall mood that we would someday look back and reflect on these times and see that there was a mission or thread there.

A New Place In The Sun

By True Grit I had been listening to a number of Glen Campbell albums, my father would loan me his HI-Fi and I would turn off the lights and fall asleep absorbing the beautiful melodies, prime lyrics and lush arrangements.

Little Green Apples stands out in my mind... by that time I think I was counting on my fingers how long it would be before I would be going off to college, have a place of my own and fall in love, what a tremendous service Bobby Gentry allows, whistles, bells and clocks going off at every musical stanza, the fire and electricity and soothing calming effects of linking up,quite a pair Bobby Gentry and Glen Campbell, and giving Miss Gentry top billing, a true gentleman, there were Sholastic books I purchased through my weekly reader that had pictures of Bobby Gentry and Glen Campbell holding their awards, a triumph and conquest for children and adults the world over.

Oh, and the front cover of Bobby Gentry and Glen Campbell, the peace charm necklace, bubble gum machines carried those, I spent a lot of quarters to collect them, the metal was a cheap base, used to break of the gold tint would get chipped,,, but I was living the dream buying and collecting those charms, a status symbol really.

The book True Grit hadn't been out for very long when the movie was released and a new batch had to be printed up with picture inserts of the stars.

I look back fondly to that year 1969/1970, I distinctly remember standing in the baseball outfield holding my mitt wandering and going over in my mind, thinking that if I finish the very first mature book I bought and could actually comprehend, the Paperback Movier-Tie In for The Molly Maguires I would reward myself by buying and reading Charles Portis True Grit.

All in the name of my icon, Glen Campbell.

The beauty of that moment in time is when you read the book and see the movie, it is a faithful adaptation, I think that is pretty important to point out, because there were a lot of children that were mentally and emotionally mixed up for many years after seeing and sitting through anti-hero movies like Bonnie & Clyde or Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, beautiful and most haunting for certain, a lot of the performance hinging on what a character is feeling by trying to read the expression on their face during a tight close-up, True Grit demonstrates where our heroes are in deed and action, Mattie will see to that.

And so yeah, Charles Portis true Grit and accompanying film really nail it for me, life is messy, you can't build a strong foundation on a mud slick incline, and sometimes it takes a Mattie to see where our moral compass is.

I loved how Mattie never speaks in contractions, that would be ignorant, quite a revelation for an eleven year old Spring of '70, and those freshly washed and scrubbed red cheeks, the burning lye soap and buckets of water, and the clean ledgers Mattie keeps, powerful, powerful stuff.

You can bet Don Black and Elmer Bernstein manage to convey those sort of things in the words and music for the True Grit theme song, a young person always carries the promises and light of a new day, something which I have heard John Wayne reference, when you wake up and find everything in your world in its' proper place.

True Grit help me to settle in my new skin.

There is a lot to be said what it was like growing up in the sixties and have Glen Campbell for an icon, what he did for children, he gave us all something to believe in.

And with a lasting legacy of more than 67 albums, more than ever, right now.

Love,
Rob


robduloc
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Re: Your Stories and Memories about Glen

Post by robduloc »

I clicked onto the link that Dee posted and love all the lists of album titles and 45 singles, thank you Dee, for taking the time to do that, the lists will prove to be an asset, especially all the songs with other artist and 45 singles before '62.

I am technologically challenged and so I really appreciate the ease pictures and info are shared and traded here, I know that I will always remember the time my son spent to make sure that I had copies of The Big Bad Rock Of Glen Campbell and It's Just A Matter Of Time to play on an auto-rip CD.


robduloc
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Re: Your Stories and Memories about Glen

Post by robduloc »

I was just a kid but I remember when Tom Smothers introduced John Hartford and Glen Campbell and also introduced the video clip for Mason Williams Classical Gas.


robduloc
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Re: Your Stories and Memories about Glen

Post by robduloc »

Thank you Dee and Mike, love the new posts, the Letting Go 45 single that I was looking at got snatched up by somebody, and on amazon.com The Golden Seal OST is going for around 45 dollars, I am in good hands here when I scroll down and enjoy all the pictures and memories, this week I purchased 12 Glen Campbell albums, that means I have bought and ordered over 54 of his albums and I am getting closer to living my dream of owning all his main titles, going to used record stores used to be like church, but I can find things a lot quicker on the internet, I placed a pre-order for the I'll Be Me OST, it's going for ten dollars, nice!


Mike Joyce
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Re: Your Stories and Memories about Glen

Post by Mike Joyce »

Thanks robduloc,
That's very kind of you. I like to engage with people so I have enjoyed reading your posts. I have the single and album Letting Go. I think its a great song and melody.
The picture of Glen is from his Festival Hall concert in 1977. You may have noticed that the lyrics are by Don Black who also wrote the words for True Grit.
It is interesting as you say about the songs not on albums.
Record collector's dream was a B side record and was only recently added to a CD as a bonus track.
I have a couple of other singles, like "If I was a Carpenter" which is a duet with Diane Solomon and " They still dance to waltzes in England" great songs.
Anyway robduloc keep enjoying the music. I must say I agree about John Barry. I love his arrangements and they really make an impact in the films.Over the last year I have developed a deeper appreciation for instrumental arrangements on piano etc. I find some tracks very moving. As you say they take you away to another place filled with emotion.


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Dee
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Re: Your Stories and Memories about Glen

Post by Dee »

Thank you, Rob, from all of your forum friends here:
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