BEFORE: I've been taking a (more or less) direct route so far, as it happens, each act sort of links to the next - Clapton played with the Beatles, Chicago toured with Jimi Hendrix, and Keith Richards put a band together for Chuck Berry. That was Phase 1 of the chain, though, and things are getting a little more fractured here in Phase 2. Sure, Amy Winehouse and Lady Gaga and George Michael all performed duets with Tony Bennett, but that's really a second-hand connection. George Michael and Whitney Houston DID record a duet together, so I feel justified that I put their documentaries next to each other. But now I have to link from pop music to country, and that's not easy.
Glen Campbell started his career as a session musician, playing on records for everyone from Elvis Presley to the Beach Boys, so you'd think that this recent doc might end up next to one of those acts, and maybe I should have found a better path to make that possible, but I needed some connection out of the Whitney film, and a connection to tomorrow's film, and this film provided both. Naturally, I'm going to blame whoever didn't submit the proper credits to the IMDB, because if I'd known more about who appears in each doc, I could have worked out more logical links. At least the credits list for today's film seems fairly complete already.
As it stands, I have to rely on archive footage of Johnny Carson tonight, as he carries over from "Whitney: Can I Be Me". I'm not proud of it, but it satisfies the rules. I'll get back to Clive Davis in a couple of days.
THE PLOT: As he struggles with Alzheimer's disease, country music legend Glen Campbell embarks on his farewell tour of the U.S.
AFTER: I went into this thinking I didn't know much about Glen Campbell's music, but then of course he turns out to be one of those acts where I knew more than I thought I did. Just a few days ago, I got on the NYC subway and someone was blaring loud music, but not the kind you'd expect - instead of annoying rap or hip-hop, everyone on the car was being forced to listen to "Rhinestone Cowboy", in addition to John Denver's "Sunshine on my Shoulder" and other soft-rock classics.
I also went into this thinking this story was going to be unusual, and probably quite a bit sad - and of course it is, but it's more than that. Maybe it was more uplifting when it was released in 2014, shortly after Campbell's farewell tour, but since he passed away just over a year ago (August 8, 2017) now it's DEFINITELY got to be really sad, right? But it's both heart-breaking and heart-warming at the same time, something I would have thought impossible. As I've learned over the last couple of nights, record company executives are evil, heartless bastards, especially from George Michael's point of view, and there are clauses in contracts that FORCE artists to do publicity tours as well as performance tours, and if they don't, then they haven't fulfilled the terms of their contract, and I assume there are financial penalties for that.
Why else would a musician suffering from Alzheimer's feel the need to tour in support of his assumed-to-be final album? Why not just claim medical reasons and bow out gracefully? Why would Campbell's wife and kids decide to all go on tour with him, beyond the contractual obligations and potential financial benefit of a farewell tour? (And to Campbell's credit, this was a serious farewell tour, not like Cher or Kiss or Meat Loaf, who have each had 4 or 5 farewell tours...) Worse, what if he goes out on tour and can't remember his own songs, or what city he's performing in? To be fair, though, I'm sure many bands have called out the wrong city's name after taking the stage. ("Hello, Chicago! Wait, what? We're in Detroit?")
But on some crazy level, packing up the kids as a backing band and going on the road with his family makes some form of sense. Fans turned out in droves once they learned about his diagnosis, and they all wanted to see him perform one last time, even if there was an occasional break in a song, or a rambling story between songs that went nowhere. As one fellow country musician says in this film, "So he plays Wichita Lineman twice in one show, who gives a rat's ass?" And performing was therapeutic, up to a point - for the majority of the tour, he really seemed to come alive, once he started to sing and play guitar. He did "Dueling Banjos" with his daughter, and that's a tough, tough piece - you're just not going to get through that song without accessing all your skill. Unless, of course, that's all sense memory for him at that stage.
Then there's the footage of Campbell during meetings with his neurologists, where he can't say what month or year it is, and can't remember a list of four words long enough to repeat them back. And if that doesn't explain how debilitating Alzheimer's is, it gets much worse by the end of the film, when he looks at a family photo and can't say anyone's name, falling back on the generic "my daughter" and "my wife". Well, to be fair, he had four wives and quite a few children over the years, but still, it's incredibly tragic to watch anyone disappear like this, bit by agonizing bit.
On the up-side, though, he was 75 at the time of the farewell tour, and not many 75-year olds would embark on a cross country tour, unless they were driving an RV to visit all of their grandchildren one last time. He seemed physically fit, if not mentally (he was aided greatly by teleprompters to remember his lyrics) and then even cut one more album before he was too far gone. He got to play at the Ryman Auditorium, Carnegie Hall and even the Library of Congress on that tour - and he didn't make it to 90-plus, but 81 isn't bad, all things considered.
Also starring Glen Campbell, Kim Campbell, Ashley Campbell, Cal Campbell, Shannon Campbell, Dave Kaplan, Julian Raymond, Bobbie Gale, Steve Ozark, Dante Rossi, Clancy Fraser, Jill Fraser, Scott Borchetta, Hal Blaine, Joe Osborn, Don Randi, John Carter Cash, Sheryl Crow, Larry Gatlin, Vince Gill, Kathy Mattea, Brad Paisley, Blake Shelton, Keith Urban, Jimmy Webb, John Paul White, Jay Leno, Steve Martin (last seen in "The Pink Panther 2"), Paul McCartney (last seen in "George Michael: Freedom"), Bruce Springsteen (last seen in "Chuck Berry Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll"), The Edge, Chad Smith, Bill Clinton (last seen in "Now More Than Ever: The History of Chicago"), Nancy Pelosi, John Boehner, Laura Savini, and archive footage of Willie Nelson, Taylor Swift, Brian Williams.
RATING: 6 out of 10 MRI brain scans
No comments:
Post a Comment