Glen Campbell
Hot on the heels of Annette O'Toole & Michael McKean, Feinstein's has the old married couple of Jimmy Webb & Glen Campbell. "We're just gonna be winging it," says Campbell, who built his career by trusting that the pop charts could handle Webb's bizarre epics, such as "Where's the Playground, Susie." They'd go on to separate careers, but those Capitol years remain one of the great pairings in the history of 60s pop.
The singer and songwriter still aren't sure how that worked. "They did this full hour about my career on the BBC," Campbell says, "and it was funny to hear Jimmy say all these things about how I'd always change a few things here and there. He asked me a long time after the fact about why I changed the ending of 'By the Time I Get to Phoenix.' I had to tell him it sounded better."
Campbell knew what he was talking about, having already established himself as a legendary session guitarist. But the real stars will remain the timeless songs.
"Having someone like Jimmy," notes Campbell, "there were just so many standards being written. By then, I'd already had 'Wichita Lineman' and 'By the Time I Get to Phoenix' and 'Galveston.'"
Campbell pauses, corrects himself: "Wait, I got 'Galveston' while I was doing my tv show. You can really sell albums that way. I was doing a session with the Smothers Brothers, and Tommy asked me if I wanted to do a Summer show to fill in for them. One day you're picking cotton, the next day you own the field."
Before getting there, though, both Webb and Campbell had to attempt reviving their respective careers with 1974's Reunion. It was a magnificent bomb that-thanks to the first recording of Webb's later mega-hit "Highwayman"-still laid the foundation for each performer's later comeback.
Campbell had to wait a while before proving he still had an ear for a song with "Rhinestone Cowboy." Fortunately, that non-Webb hit got Campbell to the point where he didn't need the industry. "I remember the new guy came in who took over Capitol Records," Campbell says, "and he played me some song by the Knack. He said, 'I want you to record something like this.' I thought he was joking."