I got a late start as a guitar player, was about 25 years old when I bought my first one and started learning to play. That first guitar started a lifelong fascination with that particular instrument . . . and with music. That passion grew into becoming a guitar maker, owning a shop where I could build the guitars I loved so much. My second guitar, a present from my mother, was an Ovation, the same guitar Glen Campbell played. It even had his name on it, and it was one of the first guitars of that kind the company made. I still have that guitar, and it's still in pristine condition. I treasure it more than any guitar in my collection.
My second wife turned out not to be a big Glen Campbell fan. She didn't dislike him, just didn't care for his music . . . and that didn't sit well with me at first. When I took her to Mississippi to meet my mother for the first time, I offered a warning. "Don't say anything unkind about Glen Campbell's music around my mother. She adores him." My mother passed away back in 1992, but to this day when I hear one of Glen's songs, I think of her. Maybe she loved him because of my interest in him. I used to make cassette tapes for her - me singing and playing the guitar, and many of those songs were Glen's songs. I never met the man, but I owe him a lot. His music encouraged me to work hard at learning guitar, learning how to sing,
Maybe you've noticed, but you don't often hear anyone trying to perform one of Glen's great hits. There's a good reason for that, I think. Nobody in the music business wants to look bad, or come off as being second best . . . and nobody can sing Glen's songs like he did. Damn few people ever learn to play a guitar as well as he did. And now he's recorded his last song, "I'm Not Going to Miss You." Well, maybe not Glen, but at least one guy out here is sure going to miss you.
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