Glen Campbell, who’s appeal to a generation spanned country music, pop, television and movies, died Tuesday his family said. The singer of “Rhinestone Cowboy,” “Galveston” and “Wichita Lineman” was 81. His death was confirmed by Tim Plumley, Campbell’s publicist at Universal Music.
Plumley issued this statement from Campbell’s family: “It is with the heaviest of hearts that we announce the passing of our beloved husband, father, grandfather, and legendary singer and guitarist, Glen Travis Campbell, at the age of 81, following his long and courageous battle with Alzheimer’s disease.”
Campbell,was born in Delight, Arkansas, the seventh son of a seventh son in a farming family.”I spent the early parts of my life looking at the north end of a southbound mule and it didn’t take long to figure out that a guitar was a lot lighter than a plow handle,” he said in a late 1970s press bio.
“Glen is one of the greatest voices there ever was in the business and he was one of the greatest musicians,” said Dolly Parton in a video statement. “He was a wonderful session musician as well. A lot of people don’t realize that. But he could play anything and he could play it really well.”
The tributes to the superstar singer were all over social media. “Thank you Glen Campbell for sharing your talent with us for so many years May you rest in peace my friend You will never be forgotten,” wrote Charlie Daniels. One of Campbell’s daughters, Ashley, said she was heartbroken. “I owe him everything I am, and everything I ever will be. He will be remembered so well and with so much love,” she wrote on Twitter.
Of his 21 Top 40 hits, “Rhinestone Cowboy” was definitely the one most recognized and became his signature song. Written and recorded by Larry Weiss in 1974, the song received little attention until Campbell heard it and related to the story of the veteran performer who finds a way to triumph over his hardship and despair. Campbell’s version of “Rhinestone Cowboy” topped the charts in 1975.
“I thought it was my autobiography set to song,” he wrote 20 years later, in his autobiography, titled “Rhinestone Cowboy.”
