GLEN CAMPBELL – Highwayman – (Capitol) – 1979

what Frank is listening to #232 – GLEN CAMPBELL – Highwayman – (Capitol) – 1979

Check my other comments for background on Campbell, if you need them.

I have always had reservations about Glen’s mid-period recordings and in one of my other comments I said: “Glen’s albums from the 70s are (generally) patchy but are always worth listening to (though I only have about half so the last statement may be a bit premature). In other words they are never tiresome though some aren't always particularly exciting. What they all have is a song or two which stands out among the MOR country pop tracks”

This release is from those years and fits that earlier comment of him generally but here the patchy leans to patchy bad rather than to patchy good.

Glen is in fine voice but one of his strongest features, his guitar, is practically hidden on this album. Sure, on the Jimmy Webb songs of the 60s, Glen’s guitar work was also pushed back but when you have song writing as good as Webb’s that doesn’t matter. On this album there are a couple of Webb tracks but nowhere near enough to justify pushing Glen’s guitar back.

Micheal Smotherman who worked a lot with Campbell in the late 70s over a number of albums (he wrote all the tracks on the “Basic” album from 1978, and quite a few here) is no Jimmy Webb.

Smotherman was put into the preferred songwriter position because he was signed to a seven year song writing contract for Campbell. Clearly Glen or one of his advisors must have found something they liked in Smotherman’s song writing. Smotherman had been in the industry for awhile and had written a number of MOR country hits as well as having played with Roger Miller, Fleetwood Mac and Captain Beefheart ! (in Beefheart’s “Tragic Band” period).

I find a lot of his songs across this album just a little to country MOR bordering on soft rock and without the eccentric touches which could help distinguish them from others similar songs. The songs are not particularly catchy but as tunes go they are strong enough. Clearly Smotherman knows how to write, but he is not Jimmy Webb and even then the arrangements do nothing for the songs here. They are just too sickly sweet.

Clearly that’s where the country market was at the time but sometimes it’s better to kick against the pricks than go the way the water flows.

Tracks (best in italics)

• Highwayman -(Jimmy Webb) –  the song made famous later by Kristofferson/Cash/Nelson/Jennings. I read somewhere once that Campbell wanted this released as a single at the time of this album but the idea was scrapped by the record company. A pity. The song is a good one with all of Webb’s usual evocative and perceptive sincerity. Perhaps not as good and certainly not as elegiactic as the later version.
• Hound Dog Man – (Tommy Stuart) – another song about the old days of rock n roll that’s not a rock song. It’s also perhaps (probably) a song about Elvis. Roy Orbison also did the song in 1979

You gave the world a whole lot of joy
Now that ain’t bad for a country boy
I just knew you could not lose
The way you sang rock and roll and blues.
I still think about these things
And the memory that it brings

Hey, hound dog man,
My old friend, play it again.
Hey, hound dog man,
My old friend, play it again

• I Was Just Thinking About You – (Micheal Smotherman) – schmaltz.
• Love Song – (Jimmy Webb) –  minor Webb.
• My Prayer -(Micheal Smotherman) –  schmaltz
• Tennessee Home- (Micheal Smotherman) – schmaltz, but half interesting.
• Don't Lose Me In The Confusion – (T.J. Kuenster) –  schmaltz – pure country pop pap …
• Cajun Caper -(Micheal Smotherman) –  a slight song but at least a bouncy one with some nice fiddle by Doug Kershaw. Despite the proliferation of Croats in Louisiana’s fishing industry they don’t get a mention. C'est la vie.
• Darlin' Darlinka -(Micheal Smotherman) –  Barely country and barely listenable.
• Fool Ya – (Micheal Smotherman) –  No, I don’t think so.

And …

Very average and probably the crappiest Glen Campbell I have heard thus far…. but because I have the others …..I'm keeping it.

Yes, I know that this is not a wise philosophy.

Chart Action

US

Singles

1979  Hound Dog Man  Country Singles 25

1979  My Prayer  Country Singles 66

Album

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England

Singles

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Album

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Sounds

Highwayman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iQdKtustvw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M48M0YTLrg

and attached

Glen Campbell-Highwayman

Hound Dog Man

Attached

Glen Campbell – Hound Dog Man

Others

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2tgVAML2gE&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qoymGCDYzU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIUPCfIihQ4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p8wDhK5LyY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s17Be3PZA8c

Review

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highwayman_(Glen_Campbell_album)

Bio

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glen_Campbell

Website

http://www.glencampbellshow.com/

Trivia

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