Earlier this year, Kim Campbell, widow of country star Glen Campbell, honored her husband by creating The Glen Campbell Museum.
On April 21, Glen’s birthday, Kim announced that she had written a book as another way to honor her late husband’s memory.
The book, Gentle On My Mind: In Sickness and in Health with Glen Campbell, talks about their decades-long relationship and will be coming out on June 23 through publisher Thomas Nelson.
“As I celebrate Glen’s birthday today, my mind is flooded with memories of our 35 years together,” Kim said. “To the world, Glen was a star of TV and film a legendary singer and guitarist who sold over 50 million records, earned six Grammys, and brought country music to the mainstream with hits like ‘Rhinestone Cowboy,’ ‘By the Time I Get to Phoenix,’ and ‘Wichita Lineman.’ To me, Glen was my husband, my best friend, and the father of our three children.
“He remained humble even though he was one of the best looking and most talented men on the planet, often jesting, ‘I don’t think I’m half as good as I really am,’” she continues. “Armed with a sense of humor and strengthened by our faith in God, we weathered the storms of Glen’s battles with alcoholism, drug addiction, and ultimately Alzheimer’s.
To celebrate our remarkable life together I am sharing our incredible love story in my new book, Gentle On My Mind: In Sickness and in Health with Glen Campbell.”
Kim was a dancer at Radio City Music Hall and was 22 years Glen’s junior when they got married in 1982. They raised three children together, Cal, Shannon, and Ashley. Glen had five other children from three previous marriages.
Glenn died in August 2017 at the age of 81 due to Alzheimer’s.
But this is only a small part of what Kim calls their “incredible” if tumultuous time together.
Aside from tracing their highs together such as hitting the top of the music charts, Gentle On My Mind doesn’t hold back in revealing their hardships such as Glen’s addiction to drugs and alcohol. Kim also describes their harrowing journey following Glen’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis in 2010 when he was 74.
In 2012, the “Rhinestone Cowboy” singer went on a farewell tour. The tour went on to encompass 137 dates. Glen allowed a film crew to document his Alzheimer’s battle while on tour. This resulted in the 2014 documentary, I’ll Be Me, and was even nominated for an Oscar for the best original song, “I’m Not Going to Miss You.”
“The goodbye tour was one of the biggest blessings for Glen that anyone could have imagined,” Kim said in a November 2017 interview. “The doctors emphasized to us that music was stimulating for the brain and it would be healthy for him.
It was Glen’s choice to do the film. He loved the camera — after all, he did a TV show for years. That was part of who he was. He said it was the most important thing that he was doing at the time. He knew he was trying to show the world what living with Alzheimer’s was like because he wanted to help find a cure.
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Glen struggled greatly after the tour was done.
“There were times he’d wake up and look at me and go ‘Are we married?’ He quit calling me by my name a long time ago,” Kim said about her husband’s sad decline. “And then, he grew combative. He gave me a black eye. I’m younger than him and faster than him so I avoided a lot. You don’t take it personally. It’s part of the disease. They lose their ability to communicate verbally so if you are trying to do something they don’t like, they instinctively lash out.”
Glen went into long-term care in 2015, eventually ending up at Abe’s Garden in Nashville. While Kim got criticized for the decision, she maintained that it was the best thing to do for Glen’s health. His battle against Alzheimer’s was hard for them as a couple and for their children.
After Glen died, Kim could now recall the happy times they shared.
“There was a time when all I could remember was the sickness,” Kim said in 2017 in describing the impact of the disease. “But now that he’s passed, the good memories are starting to flood back in.”
With her book, Kim hopes people not only become more educated about Alzheimer’s but also present an accurate picture of Glen as a husband and father, not just a singer.
“He was 22 years older than me but age didn’t matter between us — he was so young at heart and excited about ordinary things,” Kim said in 2017. “Life was just beautiful.”
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