Glen Campbell, Country Music Legend, Dies At 81

NASHVILLE, TN — Glen Campbell, the silky-singing country music legend who scored hits and vaulted into the American music pantheon with songs like "Galveston," "Rhinestone Cowboy" and "Wichita Lineman," died in Nashville Tuesday morning after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease. Campbell was 81. His official Twitter account and website announced his death.

Born in the small Arkansas town of Billstown in 1936, Campbell moved first to Albuquerque before landing in Los Angeles in the early 1960s where he became a member of The Wrecking Crew, an influential group of session musicians widely credited with crafting the sound of American pop and rock music. An extraordinarily gifted and admired guitarist, Campbell continued session work even after his solo career took off, rumored to be the highest-paid session player in the world in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In the mid-60s, Campbell earned a solo contract and had a run of small, mostly regional hits and filled in for Brian Wilson on a Beach Boys tour in 1966 as the band went on the road to support its seminal album, "Pet Sounds"; Tuesday, Wilson said Campbell was "an incredible musician and an even better person." In 1967, Capitol considered dropping Campbell but opted to give him one more chance, sparking a string of hits and launching Campbell to stardom. (For more updates on this story and free news alerts for your neighborhood, sign up for your local Middle Tennessee Patch morning newsletter.)

SEE ALSO: "Glen Campbell: Tributes From Nashville And Around The World For The Rhinestone Cowboy"

In 1967, Campbell released his version of John Hartford's "Gentle On My Mind," which he followed with "By The Time I Get To Phoenix," the first of several Campbell hits written by Jimmy Webb. In 1968, Campbell topped the charts again with ""I Wanna Live" and "Wichita Lineman," another Webb creation.

The latter, told from the perspective of a telephone worker high atop a pole in the desolate nothingness of rural Kansas, alternates between the narrator pondering the mundanities of his job — wondering about overloads, line strain and the like — and the all-consuming yearning he feels for an absent lover.

Webb and Campbell would connect again with "Galveston" in 1969. The song, though upbeat musically, is narrated by a soldier thinking of his love back home in Texas as he heads into battle. Its lovers' lament and subtle anti-war message appealed across sharply divided America in the tense years of the late 1960s. Even Webb and Campbell disagreed about the song, with the writer saying it was an anti-war song or the story of a reluctant soldier and Campbell saying he felt the song was patriotic. Whatever the case, its broad appeal lifted it to No. 1 on the country charts and No. 4 on the pop charts. In 2003, CMT selected it as the eighth-greatest country song of all time.

In the late '60s and early '70s, Campbell hosted a popular variety show — a gig he got after impressing CBS executives on a summer fill-in for "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour." He also shone on the silver screen. He sang the title song in the 1969 John Wayne classic "True Grit" and played the part of quintessential Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, the charming would-be ladies man who serves as a foil and reluctant partner of Wayne's Rooster Cogburn. He was nominated for an Academy Award for the song and Golden Globes for the song and his acting.

Campbell scored another string of hits in the late 1970s as Nashville moved to embrace the countrypolitan sound, as the style suited Campbell's polished and flexible tenor. Those chart-toppers included crossover hit "Rhinestone Cowboy," considered by some as Campbell's signature song, and swampy dancehall stomper "Southern Nights."

Though Campbell reached great heights professionally, his life off the stage was often tumultuous. Campbell admitted later he started using cocaine in 1975, leading to the break-up of his second marriage in 1980, after which the 44-year-old Campbell began dating 21-year-old Tanya Tucker. The couple dated for 14 months in a tempestuous relationship that both have said was often fueled by cocaine and physical altercations. After they broke up, he began dating the then-Kim Berg, a Rockette, whom he married in 1982.

Even as Campbell failed to find success on the charts in the '80s and '90s, his influence was still felt — and his personal struggles subsided. His publishing company gave future megastar Alan Jackson his first big break, and Keith Urban frequently cites Campbell as his primary inspiration. In 2003, Campbell's last brush with the law came with an arrest for drunken driving and assaulting a police officer. He served 10 days in jail.

In 2005, Campbell was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, and three years later, following the success of Johnny Cash's recordings of cover songs for American Recordings, released "Meet Glen Campbell," an album of covers, including the genre-bending first single: Campbell's rendition of Green Day's "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)."

In 2011, Campbell announced his Alzheimer's diagnosis and embarked on a farewell tour. He recorded "Adios," his final album in 2012, but it was not released until June of this year.

A documentary about Campbell was released in 2014 and earned Campbell his final award nomination, as "I'm Not Gonna Miss You," the last song he ever recorded, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Campbell was admitted to a Nashville memory care facility in March 2016. He is survived by his fourth wife, Kim Campbell; their three children, Cal, Shannon and Ashley; his children from previous marriages, Debby, Kelli, Travis, Kane and Dillon; 10 grandchildren, great- and great-great-grandchildren; sisters Barbara, Sandra and Jane; and brothers John Wallace “Shorty” and Gerald.

The family says that in lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Glen Campbell Memorial Fund at BrightFocus Foundation through the CareLiving.org donation page.

Other arrangements were still pending.

Image via Capitol Records, 1967, filed without copyright notice and entering the public domain in 1978.