Glen Campbell's ups and downbeats

By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Staff Writer

Glen Campbell's mainstream popularity peaked in the 1960s with his CBS variety show, "The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour." He is known for Top-10 hits such as "Wichita Lineman" and "Galveston," but his chart-topping tunes were "Rhinestone Cowboy" and "Southern Nights" in the 1970s. Glen Campbell with The Honolulu Symphony Pops and Pauline Wilson 7:30 p.m. today and Saturday Neal Blaisdell Concert Hall $15-$55 792-2000

Um, sure. Good luck with the show.

"Thank you, I appreciate it," Campbell said. "I'm looking forward to it." Click.

Campbell's polite request for an exit arrived just after his stream-of-consciousness storytelling took us past an early-'80s exorcism of drugs and booze, but before a question about the born-again Christianity, fourth marriage and family living that has kept him on the straight and narrow since.

It wasn't that Campbell was uncomfortable discussing the many less-than-savory moments on a storied 40-year career of more ups and downs and back ups again than a Wichita lineman's average day on the job. After all, his 1994 memoir, "Rhinestone Cowboy: An Autobiography" (co-written with Tom Carter), offered up scads of unpretty details about Campbell's three bad marriages, near overdose from free-basing, and addictive womanizing.

Still, "If I had it to do over again, I probably wouldn't have put it out," said Campbell of the bio. He also had his gripes about co-author Carter's admittedly stunted prose, saying, "I just didn't like the way it was worded or the way it was put together. Wording, like in a song, is everything."

Since he's coming to town for a two-evening musical stroll from Phoenix (as in "By The Time I Get To ...") through "Galveston" and all the "Southern Nights" in between with The Honolulu Symphony Pops, Campbell was asked to recall a few more of his stories. In his own words, of course.

He recalled arriving in Los Angeles at 24 with dreams of making some mad cash as a session guitarist, and racking up studio credits on hits by the likes of Bobby Darin, Ricky Nelson and Nat King Cole.

"I even got to play on some of the Phil Spector stuff," said Campbell, launching into a capella renditions of The Crystals' "He's A Rebel" and The Ronettes' "Be My Baby." "We just got the tracks and never heard anybody singing. We only saw (the singers) in rehearsals."

Campbell also played guitar on recording sessions for the Spector-produced Righteous Brothers hits "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' " and "Unchained Melody." He wouldn't argue Spector's reputation as a demanding studio perfectionist, but said the producer knew where to draw the line on his famous temper.

"He couldn't do that to the musicians, because you don't get on the musicians," said Campbell, laughing. "They can cost you a lot of money in studio time. It's like, 'Oops, I'm sorry, I missed a chord there!' You could sure make a lot of money in overtime. So he was always pretty nice to us."

A touring member of the Beach Boys after Brian Wilson's 1964 decision to retire from the road, Campbell declined an offer to become a permanent member a year later.

"I just asked 'em for a ridiculous sum, and it worked," Campbell said. "They just fought like cats and dogs sometimes. And I was kind of hankering to get out on my own and do what I wanted to do."

Campbell continued pursuing high-paying gigs as a studio musician — "$500 a day plus expenses wasn't bad" — for the likes of good friend Elvis Presley, stranger in the night Frank Sinatra, and the Mamas and the Papas while absent-mindedly keeping watch on his solo career. That career suddenly took off with a spate of country-pop crossovers that included "Phoenix" and "Gentle On My Mind."

Campbell's mainstream popularity peaked in the late 1960s when his popular CBS variety series "The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour" made Top-10 pop hits of tunes like "Wichita Lineman" and "Galveston." After a multiyear lull, Campbell resurfaced in the mid-1970s with his first and last No. 1 pop hits: "Rhinestone Cowboy" and "Southern Nights."

Feuds with his record company, Capitol, and that previously mentioned self-destructive lifestyle derailed Campbell's pop career in the late 1980s.

After trying free-basing once, four years into an off-and-on cocaine habit, "I remember asking a friend of mine about cocaine ... and the differences between free-basing and putting it in your nose," Campbell said. "When he told me, that's when I quit. I realized that it would kill me."

And then he was gone. Leaving us, uh, still on the line.