Friday, March 5, 2010

The Friday OT: Glen Campbell; Wichita Lineman

I know I'll get a kneejerk "WTF Otto?" from a section of regulars for this choice, but you really need to hit that play button, dudettes and dudes. Hey I'm no C&W fan myself, but quality beats genre every time. In this take of the classic you'll get one of those sumptuous around-ten-years-ago slick TV productions (I think it was taped 2002), but you'll also get:

  • A fine orchestral arrangement of the song. Pros at work.
  • An artist that totally owns this song. I heard the writer of the song, Jimmy Webb, sing this on a show a while back and it was way too cheesy. But not only does Campbell's singing voice match the sentiment of the lyrics, he also lives the song for you and can extract the juice from it.
  • It's also easy to forget that Campbell is a great guitarist, but in this recording it shows. The guitar break he puts in is short but he makes that instrument sing and seemingly effortlessly, too. The mark of a great guitarist is to hear a chord or two and say,"Ah! that's Carlos Santana/Jimi Hendrix/Angus Young/Eric Clapton playing". Glen Campbell has that too.



This is a great song, sung by a great artist who was having a great night and backed by great players. Enjoy.