Ken May 22, 2018 at 5:45 pm
Fifty years ago Glen Campbell was one of the hottest new stars in country music. Although he had a very successful career as a studio musician and back-up singer for most of the 1960’s he had been unable to score a significant hit record himself. His luck changed when he teamed with producer Al de Lory. They had a top 20 country hit with “Burning Bridges” in early 1967 and later that year “Gentle On My Mind” went to #30. (It became much better known after Glen used it as the opening theme for his TV show) His next Capitol single “By The Time I Get To Phoenix.” gave Glen his first big hit climbing to #2 in January 1968. Although his next single “Hey Little One” proved to be much less popular and ran out of steam at #13, Glen got right back on track with a song by veteran writer John D. Loudermilk. The catchy “I Wanna Live” became his first number one record this week in 1968. However that single had a rather unusual chart run. After peaking at #1 it dropped back to #2 for the next two weeks, then it dipped to #3 for one week before rebounding back to the top. Displaced for three weeks by Bobby Goldboro’s career hit “Honey” Glen’s recording showed amazing resilience when it regained the #1 position and held it for two more weeks.

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My Kind of Country

Week ending 5/19/18: #1 singles this week in country music history