The bit that intrigued me was the comment that he has no drama in his voice. If that is so, how does Wichita Lineman always put a lump in my throat. (As an aside it seems to a be a 'between sets' favourite with Sheffield sound engineers these days, which means I get to sing along to it most times I go to a gig. Maybe something to do with a vague synergy with Coles Corner...)

“Oh yes, and another thing, when was 'Wichita Lineman' on everyone's 'Worst Songs Ever' list?”

After reading this I went back and re-read the review in disbelief. Sorry, Kate, don't know what song you're confusing it with (MacArthur Park, perhaps?) but that's one of the most wide-of-the-mark things I've read in The Word since it declared 'MySpace bad, Facebook good'.

I don't believe there is a single person on this green earth who doesn't love Wichita Lineman like a cuddly uncle.

Campbell's 'lack of drama' is precisely what makes him an exemplary interpreter – and I do think the review makes that clear. In Wichita Lineman, by resisting the wobbles and breast-beating that other interpreters (Cash among them) went for, he transfers the emotional centre of the song away from the singer and on to the listener, the landscape, the "everyman". That's why it brings a lump to the throat. And it's that same lightness of touch that enables Campbell to withstand "redefinition" covers projects like this, I think. It could have been a freak-show.

Sadly, Lineman did have a strong kitsch tag when I was growing up and I've lost count of all the people (friends' parents, usually) who laughed at me when I said what I was listening to. Current reviews of "Comeback Campbell" have to take that love-hate thing into account.

As for personal views, at the risk of embarrassing myself terribly, here's something I wrote as 'infant hack' last year.

http://glencampbellshow.com/images/cam_webb_v7c.pdf

Just redeems herself!

For a long time the output of artists like Glenn Campbell was considered rather kitsch; at least by my generation. It was your parent's, or even your grandparent's music. Terry Wogan probably liked it and that meant that you couldn’t.

I might secretly have liked certain songs: Rhinestone Cowboy - Campbell’s wide-screen hymn to selling-out in return for mass fame - was something that would make me linger in the kitchen if it happened to play on my mother’s radio. To admit such a thing to my friends would have invited snide accusations that I also enjoyed country dancing. The wearing of gingham and the enthusiastic slapping of leather-chapped thighs, in sawdust-strewn barns went against my po-faced Goth leanings. Like a vampire or a werewolf, I learned to repress this socially unacceptable side of my personality. It formed the basis of my existential angst. If it wasn’t for my forbidden love of Rhinestone Cowboy I might never have felt compelled to read Camus and Sartre.

I've been following the music press long enough to see artists who were once regarded as terminally uncool undergo critical and popular revaluation and get welcomed back into the fold, often with great fanfare and hyperbole. I remember when The Beach Boys were widely regarded as a joke – now look at them. Many of the bands who formed the bedrock of grunge later gravitated towards folk and country – The Scud Mountain Boys covered Wichita Lineman, The Lemonheads covered Galveston. Once I could see how these older forms of music informed modern rock, it became easier and more acceptable to like them.

Prog Rock is currently going through a similar process. If you enjoy the music of Radiohead or the berserk, unpredictable riffage of The Mars Volta, it becomes difficult to discount or laugh at the experimentation and wayward self-indulgence of the earlier Prog groups.

but is it really a re-definition project? It's not in the same category as the Johnny Cash / Rick Rubin collaborations, which were clearly a very successful attempt to re-cast and re-brand 'the Man in Black'. The sound and style of the American Recordings had little in common with Cash's earlier work.

Here Campbell is simply doing what he has always done - interpreting (largely) contemporary songs in his own existing style. There is a very deliberate attempt to reproduce the orchestration of his earlier hits. IMHO I think it succeeds on these terms. Even the cover art has the feel of an early 70's compilation.

Great earlier article by the way!

Both Kate and Backwards use the word 'kitsch' to describe how Glen Campbell's output was perceived at one time, but amongst my peers it far was worse than that. Wichita Lineman has been my favourite record since I was, ooh, about five years old, but I don't think I mentioned it to anyone for a decade from the age of 16 - most people I knew considered him to be irredeemably naff. These days, I'm happy to tell anyone who'll listen. How times change.

but if you are terminally uncool how can you be welcomed bak into the fold. I always though of terminal as irreversible.

… other than the fact that this is a Glen Campbell thread, here's the wonderful Guess I'm Dumb, which amply demonstrates that Brian Wilson gave away better songs than most people could ever hope to write.
Also shows that aching vocal quality that I think is Campbell's real strength – heard to best effect in By the Time I Get To Phoenix.

What have you done? Don't you realise that the Webb fans are amongst the worst?!?!? They won't let you rest. Now you will HAVE to write a very long article about the Maestro. I can help. So can Richard Lowe. And beware Erik The Dane!

I've met him! At a Webb gig in Ronnie Scotts, wearing (if I remember rightly) a T-shirt printed with a photo of the LAST time he met Jimmy Webb. For Jimmy, it must have been like looking into a strange worm-hole in time.

Erik is a friend and a dear man. His charm is that he speaks from the heart with such enthusiasm but it is very difficult to understand a word he says. Mr Webb likes him.

I saw Jimmy Webb in 2005 in Dublin, for the first and only time, and the show was fantastic. I wonder was Erik there ...

It takes a grizzled 72 year old, a veteran of 4 marriages, a coke bust and a spell in chokey for DUI and battery, to sing a song like this properly. Unbelievably, Jackson Brown was 16 when he wrote it.

PS Doesn't the grey haired guitarist appear in that awful Ford advert featuring musicians playing Focus parts?

The album is brilliant and anyone who thinks otherwise have no recollection or was born apres '76. Complaint though centres around the brevity of the opus at a vinyl album 34 minutes length. Surely he could have found at least 2 more songs?
The Jimmy Webb debate will go on until both of them are no more. Jimmy's material these days is very unGlen like and his last album will be one of those revisted in 10 years time as a 'classic', while these days it lies in the bargain bin of my local Tesco priced at a less than generous 50p.
Talking of 'These Days' the best cover version is still the Ian(Iain) Matthews version recorded with Mike Nesmith on his 1973 album 'Valley Hi'.