Glen Campbell, international superstar, recently faced the realization that, on records, he had become a mini-star.
It had been a long slide from the 1967 hit ”Gentle On My Mind,” the second most-played song in the world, and ”Rhinestone Cowboy,” the 1975 across-the-board No. 1 record, to the mostly unheard things he did in his last few years at Capitol Records and during a brief stint with Atlantic.
”I think people expect more from Glen Campbell than what I turned out from 1979 to 1986,” he says. ”I think they expect better songs, and they expect me to do `em better.
”But, you know, agents and managers will keep you on that road `til-well, hell ain`t gonna freeze over, but that`s the term. If you`re out there grossing $4 million, they make $400,000, so they`re gonna keep you out there.
”And the expenses of going out there are so big that you can make $8 million and end up at the end of the year with your cut of it being $200,000. I said, `Wait a minute. I don`t like that kind of margin.` ”
So, a year or so ago, Campbell decided to try to change things. First, he called his old buddy Jimmy Bowen, head of MCA Records` Nashville division, and got Bowen to sign him.
Then he went even further. He talked to the managers and agents.
”I told `em, `I`m taking off. I don`t have time to play Pittsburgh Sunday night and run into Nashville and record Monday. I`ve got to have time to find some songs. Don`t book me. If you do book me, I won`t be there.`
”So that`s what I did-came to Nashville, searched for and found some songs, and now I`m taking time to try to promote the album we cut. This is the first time I`ve really done any promotion on a record in 20 years. Oh, I`ve done TV, press conferences, things like that, but to actually go out and try to sell it . . . .
”I`m very pleased about this album. I want to have people read about it and hear about it. This is the best-sounding record I`ve ever cut.”
The album is his first for MCA, ”Still Within The Sound Of My Voice.”
It`s presently halfway up the country album charts, and Campbell`s initial single from it, ”The Hand That Rocks The Cradle,” has been on the country single charts more than half of 1987.
”The Hand That Rocks The Cradle” remains on the charts while the album`s second single and title song, ”Still Within The Sound Of My Voice,” works its way toward the country Top 20.
”I`m in the music business now,” the singer says with obvious happiness.
Although many people regard him as a TV personality, host of celebrity golf tournaments and occasional front-page subject of supermarket scandal sheets, Campbell`s strong suit has always been music.
The 49-year-old singer-guitarist extraordinaire made his way from Delight, Ark., to Houston (where he recalls staying at different times with his sister, some friends and ”sleeping in the back of the car”), then to New Mexico (where he stayed with other relatives and friends) and finally, in 1960, to Los Angeles, living the wandering minstrel`s life a la ”Gentle On My Mind.”
”That was like the story of my life,” he recalls.
Los Angeles was where he gradually became a star-after being one of the most versatile and sought-after studio performers in the business. Soon after he hit L.A., he and Jimmy Bowen became friends.
”We got a job at the same publishing company, American Music, as songwriters,” Campbell remembers. ”Jimmy had just gotten into producing, and when Mr. Cross at American Music found out I could sing any kind of song any way they wanted it sung, well, we became the demo (demonstration record) kings of American Music.
”We`d go into a 2 1/2 or 3-hour session and do seven or eight tunes because we got paid 10 bucks a song, and I got paid $5 for overdubbing. That was more money than I`d ever seen.”
He and Bowen both progressed rapidly. Bowen began to produce the records of such pop giants as Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, creating such classics as ”Strangers In The Night” and ”Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime”-with Campbell supplying guitar licks.
Meanwhile, he also would play guitar and sing harmony with Bonnie Owens on such Merle Haggard country classics as ”The Fugitive” and ”Sing Me Back Home.”
”Look at the chill-bumps,” Campbell says, pointing to his arm when the subject of the Haggard sessions comes up. ”That was the best stuff Merle Haggard ever did, I think. There was something about those songs.”
When Campbell connected with John Hartford`s ”Gentle On My Mind,” he vaulted into the forefront of country-oriented popdom, and he stayed there on the strength of such classics as ”By The Time I Get To Phoenix,” ”`Wichita Lineman,” ”Dreams of the Everyday Housewife” and ”Galveston.”
Several of his biggest songs of that period were written by Jim Webb. Campbell has continued to record Webb songs periodically.
”I think Jimmy writes melodies and chord progressions as good as any of the old masters that have ever written,” he says. ”I`m talking Tchaikovsky, Beethoven.
”When we got ready to do this album, I called Jimmy and asked him to write me one. I said, `I need a gangbuster.` So he wrote `Still Within The Sound Of My Voice.` ”
While not as country as ”The Hand That Rocks The Cradle,” ”Still Within The Sound Of My Voice” is in some ways a more striking song. One of those big and soaring Webb productions that seem written not only for Campbell`s voice but in some ways also for his life.
This is another artful one-about a prominent singer trying via radio to reach the ears of an old but lost love. It could almost be Campbell singing to the legions who once hung on every record he released.
”I had a flow going for a while,” he says, ”and, the Lord willing, it can go on. I hope to achieve the creativity again at MCA that I once had the freedom to have at Capitol-so that I can do songs and music that you don`t necessarily have to like but that you can`t say is bad.”
You certainly can`t describe the songs on the new album as bad.
There`s Roger Miller`s ”Leavin`s Not The Only Way To Go,” which he says Miller wrote for Willie Nelson and Campbell talked Nelson into singing harmony on. There`s ”You Are,” a duet with Emmylou Harris, whom Campbell suggested after Reba McEntire was unable to do it because of road commitments.
There is, particularly, a stellar version of Johnny Mercer`s yodel classic ”I Remember You,” which Campbell grinningly says he ”wanted to do just to set the record straight that it can be done in tune and on pitch”-and which he says is getting as much reaction from his concert audiences as
”Rhinestone Cowboy.”
”That song can be about your dad, your mom, your brothers, your sisters, old buddies, girlfriends, wives,” he says. Then he laughs. ”In my case, I`d say wives.”
Now in the domesticity of a 1983 marriage that has produced three children, does he suffer any residual effects from his early-`80s stints on the front pages of the whisper magazines with Tanya Tucker?
He pushes up his lower lip and shakes his head.
”Naw,” he replies in the Arkansas drawl. ”I mean, you know when something`s a lie. And they lie so much they have to hire somebody to call their dog.”
