Glenn Campbell 1936 - 2017

The country singer Glenn Campbell has died.

 Glen Travis Campbell was born in Billstown on April 22, 1936, the seventh son of twelve children. It is not recorded whether his father was also a seventh son, but then nobody has seen a picture of Campbell down by the crossroads either.

Glenn was born to John Wesley, theologian and the inventor of Methodism, and Carrie Dell Campbell. The family were sharecroppers, which meant they grew stock certificates from seed investments.

Campbell started playing guitar at age four after being given a five-dollar guitar as a gift by his uncle Boo, which was a surprise.

By the time he was six he was performing on local radio stations, probably because it was a lot preferable to picking cotton. In 1954 he moved to Albuquerque to join his uncle’s band, known as Dick Bills, a popular slang terms for penicillin prescriptions.

Eventually, Campbell headed West to Los Angeles where he joined the superviliain group the Wrecking Crew, comprised of Bulldozer, Piledriver, Thunderball, and the Wrecker.

Whilst there, he also played on recordings by big names including Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, The Monkeys, Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley.

In May 1961 Campbell was signed up by Crest toothpaste, for whom he created his famous range of soups. In 1965 he finally had a hit, reaching number 45 on the Hot 100 with "Universal Soldier". The song had a deeply pacifist message. When asked about it, Campbell said, "people who are advocating burning draft cards should be hung.” Right then.

Things continued to look up and Campbell had more hits with Wichita Lineman, the ballad of a Kansas cocaine dealer, and Galveston a haunting hymn to the pink indigestion medicine.

Campbell's producer told him it was high time he 'laid down some tracks' 

Campbell’s most famous hit came in the mid-1971s, when he reached number one with Rhinestone Cowboy, from the soundtrack to the New York hustler movie starring Dustin Hoffman.

It wasn’t all good news. his first feature film, 1970's Norwood, flopped almost everywhere, except for a niche South London crowd. And Campbell lapsed into alcoholism and cocaine addiction, possibly due to the stress of his ongoing feud with Macdonalds - he would freak out if he so much as glanced at a fillet-o-fish.

Few remembered Campbell's brief stint as 'Hutch'

In 2011 Campbell revealed that he was diagnosed with Alzheimers. In 2012, he revealed that he was diagnosed with Alzheimers. In 2013 he did the same, at which point it was clear he wasn’t joking around.

He refused to be a victim though. In 2012 he performed his final "Goodbye Tour", before moving into a long-term care facility until his death.

Goodbye Glenn Campbell. We know you’re out there somewhere, still on the line.