Glen Campbell was born in Billstown, AR in 1936, the son of a sharecropper & as he once related about himself & Elvis, whom he befriended in 1964, helping him to record Viva Las Vegas, they both grew up hard, spending a lotta time picking cotton & “looking at the south end of a north-bound mule.” His family home had no electricity & they had to supplement their income by picking cotton for others. His family worshipped in the strict, fundamentalist environs of the Church of Christ but their home was filled with music. He learned to play guitar on a $5 Sears & Roebuck model & later went on to learn to play the banjo, mandolin, bass guitar, & even the bagpipes. After moving to L A. to pursue a career as a musician, where he became much in demand as a session player, even though he could never read music, eventually becoming part of the famous Wrecking Crew where he worked with Leon Russell who said “he was the best player I’d ever seen, before or since.”
G C . later became a touring member of the Beach Boys as a replacement for Brian Wilson, eventually being replaced by Bruce Johnston. His career as a singer/amazing writer is now common knowledge but many don’t know that he write the famous Vogues hit, “ Turn Around, Look At Me.” He also once toured with Ricky Nelson playing bass & in ‘67 played guitar on The Beach Boys album, “Pet Sounds.” Some of his notoriety in the press & even in the news was his tempestuous relationship with country music star Tanya Tucker. He fought a long-running battle with addiction to alcohol & cocaine during the 70’s, eventually getting clean & simpler in '87, yet once relapsed famously when he was arrested in 2003 when he was arrested for drunk driving & leaving the scene of an accident. He eventually died in 2017 at the age of 81 after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2011.