John Stewart play a Guild on the Glen Campbell show.

walrus

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THAT'S the Glen Campbell I remember!

Gotta love their hair!

walrus
 

Synchro

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These Glen Campbell threads have really taken me down memory lane. I had forgotten how great of an impact he had back in the sixties. He was really a breath of fresh air at the time, an artist that blended Country music with the sensibilities of the time. It didn't hurt that he was a nice looking fellow and came off as very personable. For some strange reason, the public tends to get tired of new artists fairly quickly, and ten years after his ascent to stardom, he had become old news to a lot of people, which is a shame, because he was still very bit as good as he had been when Gentle On My Mind first brought him to the public's notice.

I was watching the 1971 Public Television special featuring Roy Buchannon and he performed By the Time I Get to Phoenix. I found myself singing along along, trying to use Campbell's phrasing and vocal inflections and I was struck by how challenging that song could be to sing. Campbell definitely had some serious vocal chops.
 

Westerly Wood

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Why ovations? Glen always played them. Just wondering the story behind it.
 

adorshki

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Synchro,
Our ideas mesh.
dh
His comment about memory lane makes me believe that I was too insulated from recognizing the real soul of America by my left-coast upbringing, that there's a vast heartland between the coasts that's actually very much alive and unchanged 50 years later. Cultural values-wise, anyway.
Maybe Glen is proof.
Am I wrong?
 

Synchro

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Synchro,

Our ideas mesh.

dh
Well, we are almost next door neighbors. :)

Why ovations? Glen always played them. Just wondering the story behind it.

I suspect that there was an endorsement deal at the root of it. I've never been a big fan of Ovations, but I don't play flattops either, so I'm not a very good sample of opinion on the matter. I understand that Ovations come into their own as amplified flattops and that makes sense to me.

His comment about memory lane makes me believe that I was too insulated from recognizing the real soul of America by my left-coast upbringing, that there's a vast heartland between the coasts that's actually very much alive and unchanged 50 years later. Cultural values-wise, anyway.
Maybe Glen is proof.
Am I wrong?

I think that the values of the heartland are, perhaps, a bit more old-fashioned than the values on the coasts. This is a very broad generalization and far from flawless. I'm from the heart of the heartland, so to speak, and I find that I actually connect quite well with people in Orange County, CA. But people are actually pretty consistent throughout history, but the social outliers get much of the press.
 

JohnW63

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Why ovations? Glen always played them. Just wondering the story behind it.

Glen started playing Ovations very early on. They even built some to meet his specs. He continued playing them, long after any endorsement deal, had ended. I think he just liked them. I have a few. Very easy to play. Electric guitar type neck profile. Simple and debendable pick-up systems. The round back makes it less prone to damage from impacts on that part of the guitar. It's just a well engineered instrument. But, it doesn't appeal to everyone. Some just can't handle the back being round or NOT made of wood. ( I have some doubts as to whether laminate wood has anymore to give the back and sides than Lyrachord, to be honest ). Some don't like the tone, but I have seen blind test youtube where people couldn't tell it was an Ovation or some other all wood guitar. I talked to the luthier, Kathy Wingert, about top woods one time, and she said she likes the way Ovations sound, until you play them loud enough to " hear the back ". That remark has had me thinking about just what happens to the sound in a guitar at varying volumes. Do the hard corners and braces add to the sound in a positive way, and the round backs of Ovation not add tonal qualities that we have come to expect ?
 

adorshki

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I suspect that there was an endorsement deal at the root of it.
Yeah, covered on Ovation's Wiki page:
"The Ovation Roundback Balladeer first caught national attention in 1968 when Glen Campbell was the host of a show called The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour on CBS, and a year later he became one of Ovation's first endorsers.[3]"
Thought I posted it yesterday but I somehow I fluffed a couple of posts.
 
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