Capitol 103
Producer: Al De Lory
Track listing: Wichita Lineman / (Sittin’ on) the Dock of the Bay / If You Go Away / Ann / Words / Fate of Man / Dreams of the Everyday Housewife / The Straight Life / Reason to Believe / You Better Sit Down Kids / That’s Not Home
December 21, 1968
5 weeks (nonconsecutive)
By 1967, Glen Campbell’s career had come to life. After recording with the Champs in 1960, playing sessions with Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra, and working as a tour-replacement for the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, Campbell became a star in his own right. His 1967 debut album Gentle on My Mind climbed to number five. The follow-up, By the Time I Get to Phoenix, also released in 1967, didn’t fare as well on the charts — it stalled at number 15 — but earned Campbell a Grammy for Album of the Year.
Although his first two albums of 1968 — Hey, Little One and A New Place in the Sun — failed to crack the top 20, Campbell had another hit on his hands with Bobbie Gentry & Glen Campbell, an album that paired him with the voice behind “Ode to Billy Joe.”
Given the number of albums Campbell released in 1968, the singer-guitarist had little time to search for material. Aside from all the recording and live dates, Campbell was also spending time in front of the television camera. After guesting on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour on CBS, he was asked to host a summer replacement for the show in June 1968, which was so successful that Campbell landed his own series in early 1969.
Wichita Lineman was centered around the title track, written by Jimmy Webb, the same Los Angeles-based songwriter who’d penned Campbell’s first top 30 hit, “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.” Campbell still recalls the first time he heard the song about a telephone company worker, not a football player, during a visit to Webb’s Hollywood Hills home. “He played it for me on this big organ that looked like the organ at the Crystal Cathedral and it just blew me away,” Campbell recalls.
Yet when Campbell initially recorded the song at Capitol Records Studio A in Hollywood, he wasn’t pleased with the results. “We couldn’t get the sound we wanted for the record, so we ended up carting that organ down to the studio and we had Jimmy play on it,” he says.
The rest of the album was comprised of a diverse selection of songs Campbell simply “wanted to sing” including Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ on) the Dock of the Bay,” the Bee Gees’ “Words,” Sonny Bono’s “You Better Sit Down Kids,” and Tim Hardin’s “Reason to Believe.” The latter track would later be recorded by Rod Stewart.
“I didn’t have enough time in those days to really look for songs,” says Campbell. “The career was going full blast by then.” Although Campbell was given songwriting credit for “Fate of Man,” the lyrics for the song came from a poem written by Campbell’s grandfather, Daniel. The music for the track was also borrowed. “I just played ‘Danny Boy’ behind it,” Campbell says.
Ultimately, not even Campbell’s interesting song selection could keep the Wichita Lineman down. On the album’s jacket, Capitol boasted that it was “Probably one of the best albums you’ve ever heard… Probably the best album he’s ever made…” Although the label may have had trouble backing up the former claim, the latter certainly held true, at least based on its chart performance. In its sixth week on the Top LP’s chart, Wichita Lineman climbed to the top, becoming Campbell’s first and only Number One album.
THE TOP FIVE
Week of December 21, 1968
1. Wichita Lineman, Glen Campbell
2. The Beatles, The Beatles
3. Cheap Thrills, Big Brother & the Holding Company
4. Feliciano, Jose Feliciano
5. The Second, Steppenwolf