WHAT a surprise. This is, simply, a completely engaging release from a voice of an by-gone era. Gone, no more. Returned triumphiantly, he has - and brought along Jason Falkner, Robin Zander and Roger Joseph Manning, Jr. to record the 10 songs(all covers) on "Meet Glen Campbell" and to say there`s not a dud, is under-statement. The first four songs are Glen updated for modern-times, while the second half of "Meet` finds him in more comfortable footing and realm to let his natural voice shine. It all works. This is the latest "Johnny Cash"-styled comeback. For me, this is a solid "A" album, Entertainment Weekly gives it a "B+". "Who knew the Foo Fighters` ``Times Like These`` could sound like...``Galveston``? Possibly only producer Julian Raymond, who here pairs country singer Glen Campbell, 72, with melancholy songs by rock icons ranging from John Lennon (``Grow Old With Me``) and Jackson Browne (``These Days``) to the Replacements (``Sadly Beautiful``) and U2 (``All I Want Is You``) on Meet Glen Campbell. The initially spectacular `60s orchestration eventually begins to wear, but the Wichita Lineman does imbue already good tracks like Tom Petty`s ``Walls`` and Travis." "4 stars. Meet Glen Campbell evokes the soft, warm haze of his classic `60s and `70s, when he turned Jimmy Webb`s eccentricities into pop standards. Although they do make slight concessions to modernity on the rhythm tracks of Travis` "Sing" and Green Day`s "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" (also tellingly the two weakest songs on this brief album), Raymond and Willing use "Wichita Lineman" and "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" as their touchstones, picking songs that lend themselves to evocative melodrama, which generally means rich, elegiac ballads from Paul Westerberg`s "Sadly Beautiful" and U2`s "All I Want Is You" to Jackson Browne`s "These Days," a song so perfectly suited for Campbell`s voice it`s a wonder that it never popped up on one of his LPs in the early `70s. For too long, Glen Campbell has been wandering away from these strengths, singing anonymous songs in sterile settings, but here he has the right production and an exceptional set of songs, all adding up an album that is alluringly out of time, caught somewhere between the `60s and the `90s, illustrating how enduring Campbell`s sound really is."-AMG. That last sentence says it all. More than a welcome return, "Meet Glen Campbell" is the surprise of the return, comeback of the year.
 Song #1 - mp3
Song #2 - mp3
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