Bruce Springsteen pays tribute to Glen Campbell, Jimmy Webb on solo album Western Stars

[jay]

Bruce actually does an excellent job, which many have failed to do. The accompaniment has to be exactly or very close to where Glen had it.

[Cowpoke]

That's funny , I didn't read your comment until after I played the video for my wife and said that sounds like Glen's grammy performance. I thought he did a great job..

Haha, I guess great minds think alike! Yes, Bruce did a great job I agree. Love the fact that Bruce is paying tribute to Glen this way.

[jay]

Variety got The Boss to smile and shrug when we questioned his selection of “Rhinestone Cowboy” as the film’s lone cover. It’s one of the few Glen Campbell hits Jimmy Webb did not write.

“It was just a song that came up in an instant, you know,” he said. “A really beautifully written song [by Larry Weis] and it was always one of my favorites by Glen Campbell.”

In an interview with Uproxx

An interesting footnote about Western Stars, the film, is that after Bruce plays the entire album, he ends the film with not one of his songs, but instead “Rhinestone Cowboy,” a song that was made famous by, of course, Glen Campbell. Why “Rhinestone Cowboy”? Springsteen says, “Because it was celebratory. And I could’ve left the film with ‘Moonlight Motel’ and then had the voiceover, but the character in the film makes this journey and it needed to be celebrated a little bit. And so that song was celebratory. So when it comes up, it’s a release for the audience. They may not know why, but that’s why. So that’s how that song came about. And it was slightly connected to the genre I was working in, and Glen Campbell, who was an inspiration for a lot of song styles.”

[Randy]

That's funny , I didn't read your comment until after I played the video for my wife and said that sounds like Glen's grammy performance. I thought he did a great job..

[Cowpoke]

Someone uploaded a part of Bruce Springsteen's rendition of Rhinestone Cowboy...



I like it! Is it me or did Bruce model his version on Glen's performance at The Grammys.

[Cowpoke]

This is pretty cool. A film adaptation of Bruce Springsteen's new album Western Stars which includes a rousing rendition of Rhinestone Cowboy!

The real surprise comes at the end of the movie. Rather than finish on the album’s evocative but downbeat closing track Moonlight Motel, there’s a rousing rendition of Glen Campbell’s sparkling singalong Rhinestone Cowboy.

Springsteen says of the late Campbell, who also sang those two Webb classics: “When he first came out, I thought, ‘He’s a little mainstream’, but then I realised he made well-crafted records.

“He can really sing and he was a great guitarist so, as I got older, I got into that music and thought, ‘Ah, I want to make a record with those influences’.”

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10160799/ ... struggles/

Also interesting...

Springsteen started contemplating the album in 2012 and over time wrote about 40 songs before editing it down to the 14 that made the collection.

So... Glen's 2012 performance of Rhinestone Cowboy at The Grammys (where Bruce was also present) must been a major inspiration for this new album and now this movie.

Variety got The Boss to smile and shrug when we questioned his selection of “Rhinestone Cowboy” as the film’s lone cover. It’s one of the few Glen Campbell hits Jimmy Webb did not write.

“It was just a song that came up in an instant, you know,” he said. “A really beautifully written song [by Larry Weis] and it was always one of my favorites by Glen Campbell.”

https://variety.com/2019/film/news/bruc ... 203373905/

[Cowpoke]

In fact the sound of this song called Stones comes closer to Glen's trademark sound: the combination of a full orchestra and a bass note guitar solo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73ZIQktIfTo

After listening to a few of these songs I must say that melodically, these songs are no match for the Jimmy Webb songs of that era.

[Cowpoke]

Well that is an interesting question. In my memory this album has been lying on the shelves for quite some time. Bruce was present during the 2012 Grammys during which Glen of course did his Rhinestone Cowboy performance. And
Bruce participated in the documentary (I think they asked him during that Grammy night) in which he spoke glowingly about Glen. I think that was the first moment that reminded him of Glen and his particular style and sound.

Here's an article from September 2016 in which is stated that the album was by then already completely done for over a year!

https://www.billboard.com/articles/colu ... -new-album.

So Bruce recorded the album in (the first half of?) 2015 and perhaps started working on the songs even earlier, in 2014. Now the documentary I'll Be Me was released in October 2014 and aired on TV in June 2015 so... my guess is that seeing the documentary itself played a part in inspiring Bruce to make this album.

About "Hello Sunshine"... i agree it's not like "Wichita Lineman" but I do hear "Gentle on My Mind" in there!

[jay]

I wonder when (and how) Bruce made the correlation. It certainly seems like Glen's passing happened around the time he started the album.

In April, Rolling Stone wrote...

The first track off a forthcoming solo LP, “Hello Sunshine” is Springsteen’s precisely-calibrated throwback to a particular style of late 1960s/early-1970s anti-anxiety radio balladry, perhaps epitomized by Glen Campbell’s magnificent 1968 version of Jimmy Webb’s “Wichita Lineman.”

Personally, I hear more of "Everybody's Talking" than "Wichita Lineman"... but how cool is it that someone like Bruce is putting Glen out in front of his album.

[Cowpoke]

Bruce Springsteen has finally released his Glen Campbell inspired solo album called "Western Stars" he recorded a few years back.

“Glen Campbell, Jimmy Webb, Burt Bacharach, those kinds of records. I don’t know if people will hear those influences, but that was what I had in my mind,” Springsteen explained.

Here's the first single, which sounds quite familiar, or should I say "gentle" to my ears...



Read more: https://www.mygoldmusic.co.uk/news/musi ... ern-stars/