Rhinestone Cowboy: Bloodline

Customer Reviews:

• two great country/pop: GLEN CAMPBELL for the most part is suppose to be classified as country artist but these songs are more pop than anything else.rhinestone cowboy was a hit on both charts(when this really meant anything)these are both really well rounded albums with a good mix of hits ballads any upbeat songs.the tracks are a little dated( you can tell they are from the mid seventies)but its a fresh change from some of the mondern country music thats around to day.though never regarded classic as some of his earlier
  work RHINESTONE COWBOY/BLOODLINE are worth revisiting.
• Two of his best, a great match of artist & producers...: After a long and successful association with Capitol Records staff producer, Al DeLory, Glen Campbell recorded his first of two albums with rock writer/producers Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter. The first effort, Rhinestone Cowboy was a remarkably strong album producing the 39 year old veteran's first number one Billboard Hot 100 single with the title track in September 1975. The second single, "Country Boy (You Got Your Feet In L.A.)" also reached the ten top on the Hot 100. The rest of the tracks were well chosen by Campbell and the producers. I had not heard the album in many years until I bought this CD, and I was surprised that other songs were not issued as singles. Lambert and Potter were quite a force in the 1970's. They either wrote and/or produced hits for The Righteous Brothers, The Four Tops, and Cass Elliot. Lambert would go on to do the same in the future for Player ("Baby Come Back"), The Commodores ("Nightshift"), Starship, Natalie Cole, and Justin Hayward.
  
  Of course, I am in no way diminishing the contribution of the artist. Glen Campbell is one of the finest guitarists of his generation. He played lead in some of the recordings of Frank Sinatra, The Champs, and The Beach Boys as well as countless others. As good as he is as a guitarist, he was even better as a vocalist. The great Brian Wilson personally selected Campbell as his replacement in the touring version of the Beach Boys.
  
  The second album paired with Rhinestone Cowboy, Bloodline, was unfamiliar to me until my purchase of this CD. It is once again, with Lambert and Potter, and it does not disappoint. While it did not share the same degree of commercial success, it features ten well crafted songs from various writers including Jimmy Webb to whom Campbell owed much of his early chart success.
  
  If you like Glen Campbell, you'll really enjoy this collection. The CD is from a fantastic Australian reissue label, Raven. Not only do they present the orginial albums in great sound, they also include bonus tracks on most of their reissues. This one includes three.
• At Last! Praise Be!: Why, why, why did it take so long to offer
  the RHINESTONE COWBOY album on CD? Why? Why? Why?
  One of the best albums of the era, with Campbell in top form--
  We've been playing this over and over since it arrived from
  Amazon. Many of the cuts are available on other
  disks, but this album, with these songs in exactly the right order, is a classic. I love it. My husband loves it. I almost wept with happiness the first time I heard it again after all these years. And BLOODLINE is a great runner up.
• It's been a long time coming: Between 1967 and 1977, Glen Campbell's most successful period, Capitol Records cashed in on the singer. Given this, Capitol does a lousy job making Campbell's back catalogue available on CD again. Proof Points? The best career retrospective on the market is without doubt not Capitol's "Essential Vol.1-3", but Razor& Tie's double CD "Collection". In 1999, it was not Capitol which re-issued Campbell's masterpiece with Jim Webb compositions, "Reunion", but the Australian label Raven. And now, in 2002, it's up to Raven again to reissue two Campbell albums from the mid-70s on one CD: "Rhinestone Cowboy" (1975), Campbell's most successful album, and "Bloodline" (1976), both produced by Lambert & Potter.
  At last, Campbell fans old and new can enjoy this great music again. Campbell was and always will be popular for blending country and pop music and on these two albums one can tell why this is so. Both albums contain songs that rank among the best Campbell has ever recorded: The sparse arrangement of Randy Newman's "Marie" on "Rhinestone Cowboy" has as much emotional strength as everything on "Reunion"; "Comeback" and "We're Over" are almost equally strong. The same holds true for the material on "Bloodline": "Christiaan No", a Webb song, has been available elsewhere but it's good to hear the song together with other great songs like "Lay me down (roll me out to sea), written by "Rhinestone Cowboy" author Larry Weiss, the title track "Bloodline" or the lovely "San Francisco is a lonely town". This is great stuff - enjoy it.
  And as for Capitol? There is still a lot of material to re-issue, e.g. the great "Try a Little Kindness" album" or "Houston"(the title song of which is a bonus track on the reviewed CD. Come on, guys, do us a favor, for a change.