Among the highlights of this year’s Americana Music Association festival were a pair of events involving Glen Campbell, who was the subject of both a documentary film screening at the Country Music Hall of Fame on Saturday afternoon and a tribute show at the Cannery Ballroom on Saturday evening. At both events, Campbell himself made an appearance, doing an interview at the film screening, and closing the tribute show by taking the stage himself.
The tribute show featured nine of Campbell’s best-known hits performed by an array of bigger and smaller names in Americana, with backing by a solid crew from the Los Angeles Sin City All-Stars jam sessions (most notably bassist Dusty Wakeman). Kicking things off was Sin City ringleader Bryson Jones, who chose the latter-day nugget “Mansion In Branson”, before his fellow Los Angeleno Aaron Beavers (of the band Shurman) gave a nod to his adopted hometown with “Country Boy (You’ve Got Your Feet In L.A.)”.
Texan Jesse Dayton delivered a smooth rendition of Campbell’s early John Hartford-penned hit “Gentle On My Mind” and then joined the band for the rest of the set as a guitarist. Jim Lauderdale was next, tackling the first of the three Jimmy Webb-penned, city-named late-’60s hits that put Campbell’s career into overdrive: his “By The Time I Get To Phoenix” was maybe not quite equal to that of the late Isaac Hayes, but it was pretty good for a Saturday night gig with a pickup band of friends and ringers.
Jason Ringenberg followed and hit the next of those city songs, “Galveston”, kindly asking for a moment of silence before the song began in light of the recent devastation the town suffered from Hurricane Ike. While “Galveston” is always a good choice, one couldn’t help but think the song which would’ve best-suited the well-western-dressed Scorchers frontman would’ve been “Rhinestone Cowboy” (though we’d find out, later, why that one was off the table).
Chuck Mead, erstwhile BR459er with a solo record apparently coming in early 2009, turned in what was maybe the best all-around reading of the evening on Tim Hardin’s “Reason To Believe” before turning things over to guitarist Dave Gonzales of the Paladins and the Hacienda Brothers, who turned sharply toward twang with a joyously plucky “Kentucky Means Paradise”.
The final two songs of the tribute featured Mavericks singer Raul Malo, who dueted with Greta Gaines on “Let It Be Me” before a show-stopping solo turn on Webb’s “Wichita Lineman”.
The only thing which could really top that would be Glen himself and sure enough, on cue, Campbell emerged to the delight of the crowd.
The focus of his AMA visit was to promote his new album Meet Glen Campbell, featuring a variety of mostly “modern” cover songs, and he pulled out a couple of those to cap this shindig: “Sing”, by the British band Travis, and “Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)” by Green Day. Somewhat surprisingly, they both came off quite well; although the album is fairly heavily produced with lush instrumentation, Campbell sang them equally directly and effectively with what was essentially glorified bar-band backing.
Apparently Campbell figures he just can’t ever perform any set without doing his two biggest hits, “Rhinestone Cowboy” and “Southern Nights”, so he closed things out with those two smashes — campy to some extent (like when he finished the former by adding “….and cowgirl!”), but for the most part enough to put a smile on pretty much everyone in the place, especially when he brought out the full cast for a joyous romp through the latter tune. After all, when you close the set with an Allen Toussaint composition, what can go wrong?
