Glen Campbell

There’s no place quite as empty as a 17,000 seat coliseum filled with a couple of thousand chicken farmers, but even that couldn’t faze a rejuvenated Glen Campbell as the singer recently revealed the number one reason his was once a household name-an ability to spot hit songs and make them his own.Campbell, quietly slipping into Birmingham as the featured entertainment for the annual state convention of the Alabama Poultry and Egg Association at the Birmingham Jefferson County Civic Center, effortlessly showed how religion and what appears to be a facelift or two can resurrect the talents of an aging entertainer who has left his fingerprints on everything from pop music and variety television to country singer Tanya Tucker.

Fresh on the heels of her latest hit, “Little Bird,” Australian country songstress Sherrie Austin, the opening act, was ignored for the most part by the subdued audience, finally eliciting a roar of approval when she announced that her mom thinks that anything other than country and western is “drug music.” Less than an hour later, former drug addict Glen Campbell strolled out with an electric guitar and kicked into the unforgettable guitar intro of his 1969 hit “Galveston.” For the next 90 minutes, Campbell dusted off his repertoire of ’60s and ’70s radio classics, wooing a subdued audience that included this year’s inductees into the Alabama Poultry Hall of Fame and the “Alabama Farm Family of the Year.”

Campbell’s voice was remarkably clear and powerful, smoothly snagging the high note that ends each chorus of “Wichita Lineman” and reflecting with melancholy resignation on “By the Time I Get To Phoenix.” His guitar playing was no less impressive, left leg perpetually keeping time like a Las Vegas version of Chuck Berry. His lightening-fast fingers ripped through the Mason Williams’ hit “Classical Gas” and rode the melody of the “William Tell Overture,” never missing a note as he raised the guitar over his head, effortlessly picking the song’s grand finale.

The hits never stopped: “Gentle On My Mind,” “Try a Little Kindness,” “All I Ever Need Is You.” He even brought out daughter Debby, a talented airline attendant who sings with her father on her days off, for a series of duets that found Campbell impressively impersonating everyone from Sonny Bono to Johnny Cash.

Campbell dug into his pockets countless times, sometimes even in the middle of guitar solos, to toss guitar picks into outstretched hands at the foot of the stage. And he didn’t think twice about abandoning the microphone in the middle of his 1968 hit “The Dreams of the Everyday Housewife” to kneel down at the front of the stage, wrapping his arm around grinning women as he smiled for photos, joking with the ladies, “Is your husband here tonight?” His stage persona was so relaxed it was as if he were entertaining at home in his living room, constantly singing bits and occasional pieces of songs, only to give up as he laughed and said he couldn’t remember the words. He was even tuning his 12-string guitar as he sang the opening verses to the 1977 hit “Southern Nights.”

Checking his watch for about the fifth time, Campbell bemoaned the lack of good tunes in modern music. He took a couple of jabs at the country music establishment, saying he didn’t play any of that “line dancing garbage” before noting that Nashville record executives were a “bunch of schmucks.” With that off his chest, Campbell finally brought the audience to their feet with a rousing “Rhinestone Cowboy,” took one final bow, and caught a midnight jet so he could play a round of golf in a charity tournament early the next morning. &