After Glen Campbell, the man who gave us “Rhinestone Cowboy” and “Wichita Lineman,” was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2011 he went on a “Goodbye Tour” which officially ended in November 2012. The tour culminated with the release of his last recording, “I’m Not Gonna Miss You” in January 2013.
His daughter, Ashley Campbell, recently opened up about Glen’s health to Rolling Stone while promoting Glen’s final studio album Adiós which collects a number of Glen’s favorite songs and some of which he had never before previously recorded.
Ashley told Rolling Stone:
My dad is currently living in a beautiful memory care facility, and he is in the late stages of Alzheimer’s. He has aphasia, so he can’t really communicate, he can’t really understand language as we do. I kind of look at it like he can’t really receive information. He hears just fine – he doesn’t need a hearing aid – he just has trouble processing what he hears.
She continued:
He doesn’t really use language much anymore, but we look on the bright side [because] in these late stages of Alzheimer’s, it could be very bad. It could be confusion and anger a lot of the time, which is the case for a lot of people I’ve seen. But for him he’s just happy every day, smiles, he enjoys life and he enjoys being around people – and he loves a good piece of cake.
She did recall one extremely touching moment when she visited him for dinner recently:
We were sitting at dinner, and he used to do this joking thing where he would threaten to stab you with a fork and then laugh. So he did it again. He knocked a piece of food off his plate and I reached to put it back, and he turns on me with the fork and goes, ‘Haha!’ It was so funny. Little glimpses of him will come back every now and then, and it just makes me so happy.
Take a listen to Ashley and Glen Campbell performing “Dueling Banjos”
Source: Rolling Stone
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