Glen Campbell traveled about as far from home as a person can. He played on some of the biggest records of the 1960s, sold millions of his own, starred alongside John Wayne and hosted a hit network television show. But he never let America forget where he came from. And when his long road ended, it ended exactly where it began.
A sharecropper’s seventh son
Glen Travis Campbell was born on April 22, 1936, in Billstown, a tiny community near Delight in Pike County, Arkansas. He was the seventh son among twelve children of John Wesley Campbell, a sharecropper, and Carrie Dell Campbell. The family grew cotton, corn, watermelons and potatoes, and picked cotton for other farmers to make ends meet. Glen later recalled the work in plain terms:
“If you worked your tail off, you could pick 80 or 90 pounds a day.”
Music was everywhere in the family. When Glen was 4, his father bought him a five-dollar guitar from Sears, and his uncle Boo taught him the basics. He was a natural. He left school in the 10th grade to play music, first with relatives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and later in Los Angeles.
From session man to superstar
In Los Angeles, Glen became one of the most in-demand session guitarists in the business, part of the group of studio players later known as the Wrecking Crew. Then he stepped out front. “Gentle on My Mind,” “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” “Wichita Lineman,” “Galveston” and later “Rhinestone Cowboy” made him one of the biggest stars in America.
Television made him a household name. After filling in on a summer replacement for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, he got his own CBS variety show, The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, which ran from 1969 to 1972. Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Linda Ronstadt and Neil Diamond were among his guests.
“Come see me”
Glen often called himself a boy from Delight, the nearest town to Billstown, where he went to school. According to Arkansas journalist Michael Hibblen, Glen brought national attention to the little town by closing episodes of his show with an invitation: if you’re ever in Delight, Arkansas, come see him. Relatives of the Campbell family still live in the area today.
The long goodbye
On June 22, 2011, Glen announced that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Instead of disappearing, he went on a farewell tour with members of his family in his band, and allowed filmmakers to follow him for the documentary Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me, released in 2014. That same year, his family moved him into a care facility. His final studio album, Adiós, came out in June 2017.
Glen Campbell died on August 8, 2017, at a long-term care facility in Nashville, Tennessee. He was 81.
Home to Billstown
The very next day, Wednesday, August 9, his family brought him back to Arkansas. He was buried in a private family service at the Campbell family cemetery in Billstown, with help from the Pike County Sheriff’s Department. The family’s statement said simply that Glen had been laid to rest on Wednesday in a private ceremony in his hometown.
Pike County Judge Dewight Mack said he was proud to have known Glen and called him a sweet person who was very good to his family.
A sign on Billstown Road
Visitors who find their way down Billstown Road know they have arrived when they see a wooden post with a hanging sign that reads “Campbell’s Cemetery.” Most of the gravestones there carry the Campbell name. Glen’s tombstone, which he shares with his wife, Kimberly, sits among his family. Visitors have reported that a motion sensor near the grave starts playing “Amazing Grace” when someone approaches.
Glen once sang about the sandy soil of Pike County in his song “Arkansas.” Now he rests in it, a few miles from the town he spent years inviting the whole country to visit.