Glen Campbell: Meet Glen Campbell
Here are some things Meet Glen Campbell is not:
• It’s not ironic or insincere. Campbell’s vocals on “Grow Old With Me,” for instance, are as convincing (if a touch more weathered) as on “Wichita Lineman.”
• It’s not a gimmick or a joke, like the hokey Pat Boone-ifications of In A Metal Mood.
• It’s not produced by Rick Rubin, doesn’t sound like it, and isn’t as dreary as if it had been.
• It’s not a reclamation project, like Bruce Springsteen’s for Gary “U.S.” Bonds or Tom Petty’s with Del Shannon, where anyone came forward with new material, custom-written for Campbell.
Yeah, about the material. Despite a sticker on the CD shrink-wrap claiming Glen “hand picked” these “classic tracks,” the man himself writes in the booklet that producer Julian Raymond “hand picked” the songs and came to the veteran singer-guitarist with the album concept. This means that someone “hand picked” songs from such unlikely sources as Green Day and the Velvet Underground (along with more obvious selections, like Tom Petty and Jackson Browne), set them in arrangements that evoke Campbell’s late 1960’s classics, and recorded them with contributions from the likes of (former Jellyfish) Jason Falkner, Wendy Melvoin, Cheap Trick’s Robin Zander and Rick Neilsen, and five of Glen’s kids.
Anyone familiar with only Campbell’s lesser-quality, though hugely popular hits, like “Rhinestone Cowboy,” might expect Meet Glen Campbell to be a short trip to squaresville. Bear in mind, this guy’s first single was one of the hippest songs Brian Wilson’s ever written, and he was covering Allen Toussaint when Elvis Costello was still answering to the name, “Declan.” And three of Campbell’s greatest recordings (“By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” “Galveston,” and “Wichita Lineman”) cemented his reputation as the ultimate interpreter of the eternally-hip Jimmy Webb’s music.
In the absence of new Webb songs of that quality, the selections on this album make sense. How different is his recording U2’s “All I Want Is You” in 2008 from covering “Reason To Believe” or “Dock of the Bay” (both on the Wichita Lineman album) in 1968? Most listeners who are familiar with the newer songs on this album are too young to remember that, when Campbell was enjoying his early success, it used to be standard practice for mellow singers like John Davidson and Andy Williams to routinely record the day’s softer rock hits. Meet Glen Campbell is very much in that tradition, although they chose some songs — the Foo Fighters’ “Times Like These” in particular — that rocked pretty hard in their original versions.
The songs here, even the Foo Fighters’, all lend themselves to arrangements that would have suited Campbell’s late-sixties releases, making Meet . . . seem less like a dramatic departure than a continuation. In this setting, “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” could pass for Campbell covering a John Hartford song on one of his hit albums, and the mildly nondescript album opener, “Sing,” could as easily have been written in 1971 as 2001.
Producer Raymond has done a remarkable job of casting these songs with vintage arrangements in warm, widescreen stereo that nicely emulates a retro LP sound. And even clocks in at an LP friendly 33 1/2 minutes. At 72 years old, Campbell’s voice is surprisingly strong, even if he seems to have lost a bit of range and tone from his glory years. His singing on the album is always earnest, with “Jesus” and “Grow Old With Me” sounding as if they’re especially meaningful to him (regardless of who chose them).
While most of the songs work better than seemed possible when this album was first announced, it’s hard not to question some of the choices, like including two Tom Petty selections and sequencing them consecutively. (And isn’t “The Golden Rose” begging to be recorded by an artist like Glen Campbell?)Apart from a classic, tremelo-laden solo (played on a very cool Danelectro, if the promotional video is to be believed), Campbell’s studio ace guitar skills aren’t much in evidence, which is a disappointment. Another minor complaint is one prominent misstep in the arrangement of “These Days,” where a cheesy organ solo clashes with the lush instrumentation.
The biggest let-down is the closing track, John Lennon’s “Grow Old With Me” (one of the demo’s offered to the then-surviving Beatles for the Anthology project, and passed over). Campbell has said in interviews that he hopes the song will become a new wedding standard. While it expresses a lovely sentiment, and he sings it with a great deal of feeling, it’s simply not a very memorable melody, or one of Lennon’s better compositions.
These are minor reservations about an album that no one expected. Overall, it’s an admirable effort from everyone involved, and a pleasure to listen to, a nice slice of audio comfort food. It is highly recommended to any Glen Campbell fan, and should be of at least mild interest to fans of cover versions (and, judging from the blogs devoted to covers, there are many).
Add to the list of what Meet Glen Campbell is not, apparently, a comeback attempt. From interviews with Campbell and producer Raymond, these sessions were kept as low-impact as possible for the singer, who would come in from his morning golf, put down a vocal to ready-and-waiting backing tracks, and take off until the next day. And if Glen decides not to interrupt his golfing with recording any more, Julian Raymond and company have provided his fans an appropriate finale. Don’t be surprised if no one wants to let him pack it in after this one, though.
