Around two decades after releasing his hit single “By the Time I Get to Phoenix”, Glen Campbell and his wife, Kimberly Woollen, had settled down in that very city. The couple found a local church to attend, the North Phoenix Baptist Church. And given Campbell’s talents, it didn’t take long before he began regularly performing at the house of worship.
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This performance space became the backdrop for many of Campbell’s most spectacular musical offerings, including a rousing rendition of “Southern Nights” that showed off his impeccable singing and fingerpicking abilities. But the country singer wasn’t the only Campbell who got to show off their talents at church.
Glen Campbell Performs Touching Duet With His Mother in 1988
Glen Campbell began performing at the North Phoenix Baptist Church shortly after he and his wife, Kimberly Woollen, settled down in Arizona to start their young family. Campbell would perform during special services to the delight of the congregation, sometimes even calling up people from the pews. One such performance took place in late 1988, when Glen Campbell performed a touching duet set with his mother, Carrie Dell Campbell.
“I see a pretty lady sitting out there that I know is just itching to sing a song, ain’t she?” Campbell teased into the microphone. “You wanna come up?” As she walked toward the stage, Campbell said, “This is my mom, who’s 83 years young. They say you teach a child the ways when he’s very young, and they’ll come back to him, right? She taught me very young. I’m one of twelve kids. There was no such thing as electricity or warming the bottle.”
“Mama went to church every Sunday,” Campbell continued. Plugging his then-forthcoming album, Favorite Hymns, the singer said, “I played them for mom going home in the car today. I have a rough cut of them. And she sang along with every one of them, and it was songs that I learned when my mom took me to church. This is a song we used to do with Dad.”
With his arm around his mother, the pair sang “Crying Time” and “Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine”. The performance was a heartwarming testament to how much Campbell’s parents influenced him as a young boy growing up in Arkansas, finding solace in the guitar and through singing. His father, who occasionally appeared on The Glen Campbell Music Show alongside Carrie Dell, was clearly a showman at heart, too, cutting up with his son, totally at ease on camera.
The Singer’s Time With the Church Came After an Intense Revelation
Life was not always idyllic for Glen Campbell and his family in Phoenix. The “Wichita Lineman” struggled with alcoholism and substance abuse throughout his life, and both came to a head around the time he had his first child with his wife, Kimberly Woollen. After trying and failing to quit alcohol and c****** for the sake of his family, Campbell woke up one fateful morning with something he described as “the worst hangover of my life.”
“The sun was streaming through the curtains, and it was all I could do to roll out of bed and get on my knees,” he said in a 1994 interview. “‘Lord,’ I prayed. ‘Get me off this stuff. Help me find a way.’ This time, I wanted to surrender everything to Christ—my pain, my drinking, my whole life. Again, I don’t understand the mystery of why he chose that moment to save me, but he reached into my life and took up the burden.”
“Today, I truly have a peace ‘which passeth all understanding,’” Campbell said. “But I thank the Lord all the time. I am a man richly blessed, despite myself.”
Campbell’s dedication to his faith and, in turn, his local church was certainly a blessing for the rest of the congregation, too, as they got to enjoy world-class performances at their neighborhood house of worship.
Photo by ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images
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