TV Pop Diaries
Pop Music on British Television 1955 - 1999

Handsome singer and guitarist Campbell was destined to be a big TV star. However, despite his hits his successful USA TV series was not shown here in the UK. His then UK record company boss Jeff Kruger went to the USA and chose seven of the shows to be edited down to three, hour-long shows for potential BBC broadcast in summer 1969. A BBC spokesman told the NME "We have already been offered the entire Campbell series, but we did not feel it was suitable for this country. However, we should be very interested in a short series specially edited for Britain." But it wasn't to be.

Following the end of the successful Bobbie Gentry series BBC2 were looking around for a suitable replacement. After a few years they took a chance on Glen Campbell, caught between his run of late sixties classic Jimmy Webb written hits and just before his mid seventies re-boot with Southern Nights and Rhinestone Cowboy. His CBS series Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour had come to an end June 1972, so was now a free agent.

Campbell himself was no stranger to BBC's Television Centre having being given his own TV special in 1970, with guest Bobbie Gentry with whom he had recorded a hit single and album. The following year the BBC pitched their tent at the Talk of the Town in London's West End to record him in concert, while 1973 saw the BBC give him another one-off, An Evening With Glen Campbell. ATV then took over by showing his Glen Campbell and Company shows, co-produced with American TV.

Lured back to the BBC The Glen Campbell Music Show debuted in April 1975 and was produced by Terry Hughes, producer of among others, The Two Ronnies. His guests included Jimmy Webb, Wayne Newton, Helen Reddy, David Gates, Anne Murray and Seals & Crofts. Which meant either that the BBC were trying to sell the show to America ala Tom Jones, or the guests were hand picked by Campbell himself. Glen somehow managed to get around the British Musician's Union bar on American artists bringing their own musicians, so Carl Jackson, Bill Graham, Bob Felts and arranger Dennis McCarthy joined him at Television Centre.

His medley of Jimmy Webb songs performed with the writer himself is undoubtedly one of seventies pop TV's finest moments, while many of the medleys performed with guests on the series would later appear on the Through the Years Live - Ultimate Collection DVD.

Preceding the show he had re-recorded his song Houston (I'm Comin' To See You) as London (I'm Comin' To See You), but strangely didn't perform the song during the show's run.

Despite the success of the show there would be no second series. By October 1975 he was back at the top of the American charts with Rhinestone Cowboy and American TV came calling again, however Campbell would star in other concert shows for the BBC over the next few years. The name The Glen Campbell Music Show would reappear in the USA in the early 1980s.

THE GLEN CAMPBELL MUSIC SHOW

BBC2

20th April 1975 - 25th May 1975