Posted on 01/24/2015 3:09:51 PM PST by FlJoePa
Forty-six years ago today (Jan. 22, 1969), Glen Campbell struck gold for the first time. It was on this day that the singer earned the first gold single of his career, signifying sales of 500,000 copies, with ‘Wichita Lineman.’
The song, which was the title track of Campbell’s 12th studio album, was written by Jimmy Webb, who got the inspiration for the tune while driving through Washita County, Okla., when he saw a lone telephone lineman working on the top of a telephone pole.
“I’m a songwriter, and I can write about anything I want to,” Webb says of his inspiration for the song. “I feel that you should know something about what you’re doing, and you should have an image, and I have a very specific image of a guy I saw working up on the wires out in the Oklahoma panhandle one time with a telephone in his hand talking to somebody. And this exquisite aesthetic balance of all these telephone poles just decreasing in size as they got further and further away from the viewer — that being me — and as I passed him, he began to diminish in size.
“This song came about, really, from wondering what that was like, what it would be like to be working up on a telephone pole, and what would you be talking about?” Webb continues. “Was he talking to his girlfriend? Probably just doing one of those checks where they called up and said, ‘Mile marker 46,’ you know. ‘Everything’s working so far.’”
Webb often wrote in the studio while Campbell was recording. As soon as the songwriter played part of ‘Wichita Lineman’ for Campbell, the singer knew he wanted to record the tune.
“I implored him to finish it and even offered to help,” Campbell says. “But he told me to go and play my guitar and leave the writing to him.”
‘Wichita Lineman,’ which was nominated for an ACM Award for Single of the Year in 1968, has been included on several of Campbell’s compilation albums, including ‘Glen Campbell’s Greatest Hits’ in 1971, ‘The Best of Glen Campbell’ in 1976, 1987′s ‘The Very Best of Glen Campbell’ and ‘The Legacy’ from 2003.
The song was also included on Campbell’s final ‘See You There’ album, which was released as the legendary singer’s battle with Alzheimer’s disease caused him to officially retire from the music business.
“Pipeline” was recorded at Wenzel’s Music Town, at Lakewood and Gardendale in Downey. Later, Wenzel’s was the best record store in the Southland for those seeking out collectible records. I shopped there hundreds of times from the late 1970’s until it closed in the 1990’s.
It was around 1977 or so, I don’t remember exactly, but it was at or near Grauman’s Chinese Theater. Johnny Rivers was on the bill too.
Also notice that "love" is never mentioned. It goes beyond that, as expressed by the "need you more than want you" lyrics.
Nothing has honored his life and career more than his manner of leaving it.
A few of the many Jimmy Webb songs: “Up, Up and Away”, “By the Time I Get to Phoenix”, and “Galveston”...
Good stuff. He is a good old boy headed for Heaven where he’ll be singing forever.
Alvin Lee’s Tulsa Queen.
Couldn’t get it or find it.
Whoops — meant to say Albert Lee. He was Emmylou Harris’s guitarist for a few years in the seventies. His second solo in the video I linked earlier has this distinctive complex lick that sounds a lot like one Glen Campbell plays in your video.
bttt
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