Glen Campbell

Meet Glen Campbell

Capitol Records

By Gene Sculatti

"Across the great divide/ Just grab your hat and take that ride," sang another American institution, The Band. Since the late '60s, Glen Campbell has stared across a chasm just as deep and daunting as the Western frontier: the one dividing pop from "rock." It has sometimes seemed as though his Top-40 success separated him from the respect he would have received if he'd played louder, partied harder (though he subsequently did), more aggressively acted the artiste.

But, as time has proved, pop can be every bit as transcendent as any genre. One need only reference Campbell's work with the Jimmy Webb songbook--or Meet Glen Campbell, an impressive, affecting  new set that, in a perfect world, would do for Campbell what Johnny Cash's first American Recordings did for him. Campbell's album, in fact, treads a similar path, pairing him with 10 pieces from the repertoires of (mostly) classic and contemporary rock acts. He doesn't just acquit himself admirably; in more than one case, his reading pulls a well-steamed chestnut out of the bunch to render it fully alive and newly relevant.

Take "These Days." Jackson Browne's original had a hint of the sagacious about it: a well-posed rumination on time and consequences coming from a 25-year-old. The song resonates on a whole other bandwidth in the hands of a singer who's 72 and has spent considerable effort making peace with the clock and calendar. Campbell brings much the same perspective to the Foo Fighters' "Times Like These"; here, over strings and a low, Duane Eddy-ish guitar line, he conveys just how rich and relished the opportunities for change and renewal become the less frequently they're offered us.

Which doesn't mean that Meet Glen Campbell is all autumnal, October-of-my-years stuff. The album-opening cover of Travis' "Sing" is a rousing, Spectorian workout that advances the notion that music itself raises the spirit and makes everything all right, which is, after all, the implicit message of pop. The track is an actual force, Campbell's vocal gathering emotion and color with each verse as a surge of guitar, bells, banjo, pedal-steel, chorus and big big drums swirl around him. Just as robust, and a bit more rockin,' is "Walls," his take on Tom Petty's plea to a guarded lover. The "Rhinestone Cowboy"-ish strings come across as overly self-referential, but then precedent (both intended and accidental) is everywhere: session-man Campbell guitarred on many of the '60s L.A. records that provided the template for Petty's folk-rock style.

Campbell delivers his most poignant vocal on the Velvet Underground's "Jesus." Supported by just guitar, strings and occasional vocal backup (from his sons and daughters), he reads Lou Reed's single-verse poem with humility and--perhaps because he's so often fallen from grace himself--a candor that really connects. Maybe it's age that gives so much of Campbell's singing here the ring of truth and also a sense of generosity. The latter quality shines through his versions of Green Day's compassionate kiss-off, "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)," and the Replacements' frank, father-to-child talk, "Sadly Beautiful." He's always done bittersweet well.

Part of the big news about Meet Glen Campbell is its roster of talented drop-ins--Cheap Trick's Robin Zander, Jane's Addiction bassist Chris Chaney, keyboarder Roger Joseph Manning and guitarist-singer Jason Faulkner from Jellyfish--and his return (like Brian Wilson's recent one) to Capitol Records, the home of his hits. The real front-page story, though, is about one of pop music's most gifted artists and the affinity he finds with the songs he sings. And that's not really news at all when the singer is Glen Campbell.