Showing posts with label Gentle On My Mind. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gentle On My Mind. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

As a beloved music icon begins to leave the stage for good, due to Alzheimer's, we stop and wonder if a more beautiful song could possibly be sung about two such incongruous words? "Wichita Lineman," et al - Glen Campbell's Long Goodbye makes us so very sad and wistful; see him while you can...


Glen Campbell - Wichita Lineman (LIVE, 2006)


As a beloved music icon begins to leave the stage for good, due to Alzheimer's, we stop and wonder if a more beautiful song could possibly be sung about two such incongruous words? "Wichita Lineman," et al - Glen Campbell's Long Goodbye makes us so very sad and wistful; see him while you can...


Allansmix YouTube Channel video: Glen Campbell Tribute - 45th CMA Awards 2011 on ABC-TV, Bridgestone Arena, Nashville Tennessee, November 9, 2011. 
Medley: By the Time I Get To Phoenix - Vince Gill, Wichita Lineman - Keith Urban, Galveston - Brad Paisley. https://youtu.be/gTWxvJndGDc



CBS News Sunday Morning: Correspondent Anthony Mason on Glen Campbell's final tour. February 12, 2012. Uploaded February 16, 2013. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvT-X5ONLvo

Article: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3445_162-57376147/glen-campbells-final-tour/

In a career that has spanned five decades, his last concert ever in Los Angeles was held Sunday night, at The Hollywood Bowl, and I'd have given anything to have been there to see that. 

Do I even need to tell you here that Glen Campbell won't be playing in South Florida?
No, because you come here so often, and you know how things are down here in South Florida and quite naturally, assumed that he wasn't, as well you should, because the closest he'll be coming to a city and region like Miami that thinks it's so important in the larger scheme of things is Panama City.
How do you like those apples, Miami?

Glen Campbell's final tour, ever, and the closest he's coming to me is the part of Florida that's just eastern Alabama -on July 15th. http://glencampbellmusic.com/tour/
If that doesn't say it all...


RockShorts video: Glen Campbell performs three songs on the Mike Douglas Show. September 23, 1965. http://youtu.be/FqRqGGOwDdI

Glen Cambell March 2, 2012 interview on WBUR-FM, Boston



officialglencampbell video: Glen Campbell  -"A Better Place" (Official Video) June 14, 2012.  From the "Ghost on the Canvas" CDhttp://youtu.be/JMh78jF-fMQ

As a young kid growing-up in Memphis when Jimmy Webb's Wichita Lineman came out in 1968, not just a huge hit in the U.S., but an international hit by someone from next-door Arkansas, I personally knew SO many women who cried whenever they heard this song.
"And I need you more than want you..." 


officialglencampbell video: Glen Campbell - Wichita Lineman (Live,  CBS-TV's "The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour") January 29, 1969. Uploaded March 12, 2009.
http://youtu.be/-HFCuBLAjXo

It was only when I asked one of the aunts of the kids I always played with, who frequently visited on weekends, that I learned why that was so, at least in their case, since I just didn't understand it.
One day, remembering that I'd asked her before about that, she had me sit on a swing outside and there, standing beside me, told me that she wanted to answer my question.
But that I had to promise to keep it a secret, most especially from her nephew, my friend.

She explained to me that her sister-in-law, my friend's mom, like many other families living in that nice, new  apt. complex, and even that particular part of Memphis, had husbands, fathers and uncles who were serving in Vietnam.
I've never forgotten the way that whole scene played out that day, because the woman who told me that also eventually revealed that she'd already lost one brother in Vietnam, and had another brother, my friend's father, still over there.
And that it weighed on all of their minds -all the time.

She told me that was why his mother always seemed so sad and yet so high-strung.
I filed that away in my little kid's mental notebook, so that when my friend's mom would sometimes make a big deal about something relatively minor, be over-dramatic for no particular reason, esp. about his safety, and start crying, I'd know that it was probably more than just the situation that was weighing on her mind.
That it was actually everything else that she was thinking of.
And that try as she might to keep it all bottled up inside, so her son wouldn't worry all the time, sometimes, it gets out.

After my family and I moved to South Florida that summer, and eventually found ourselves living in North Miami Beach, I know that one of the very first things that I noticed once school started for me was something that I'm sure most other kids I came to know probably never thought about. All of them had their fathers and older brothers around
Like nearly everyone we met in NMB, they seemed remarkably unaffected and disconnected to what was going on over there, and didn't seem to actually know someone who was directly connected to the war.

Especially compared to how it seemed like nearly everyone we knew in Memphis, regardless of race or age, even families like ours that had moved there from somewhere else -for us, from a big military town like San Antonio- knew many guys involved in the conflict in one way or another.
But here, well, not so much.

Make of that what you will, but over the years I've often found myself in social situations where the majority of the group I belonged to, while thinking it was typical, was, in fact, quite atypical, maybe even somewhat elitist.
And sometimes, when you get to the heart of it, one of the things that was clear to me was that they didn't know anyone who was directly involved in the most controversial issue of the past fifty years, nobody who had a direct connection to the war.
To them, it was like an abstract idea.

We all saw that that political disconnect very clearly with the rise of Reagan Democrats in 1980 and '84, and it's one of the reasons that the national Democratic Party of today now holds so little favor with such large chunks of this country, especially in The Plains and The South.
It's no accident.
The national Democrats are in the country, just not of it.

-----

Official Glen Campbell YouTube Channelhttp://www.youtube.com/user/officialglencampbell

http://glencampbellmusic.com/


Episodes of The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour:

http://www.tv.com/shows/the-glen-campbell-goodtime-hour/episodes/