Simply put, Ghost On the Canvas is the album of Glen Campbell's life. Take that as literally or figuratively as you like and it still is the case. With beauty, power, heartfelt emotion and deep spirituality, this set of songs – a song cycle, if you will – traces the arc of Campbell's 75 years: From dirt-poor, tinytown Arkansas origins to Hollywood triumphs on the pop charts, TV and movies. From barnstorming days of youthful touring to hobnobbing with Elvis, Sinatra and the Duke. From troubled freefalls of addiction and bad life choices to personal and spiritual redemption.
It's all here in this series of songs, starting with the prayerful invocation quoted above and concluding what Campbell has said will be his final album with a glorious, celebratory guitar jam featuring his own still-stellar chops alongside those of such colleagues and acolytes as Billy Corgan, Brian Setzer, Rick Nielsen, Jason Falkner, Marty Rifkin, Steve Hunter, Tim Pierce and Keith Urban. The album was largely written by Campbell with producer-collaborator Julian Raymond, complemented by contributions from Jakob Dylan, Paul Westerberg, Teddy Thompson and Robert Pollard, with evocative instrumental interludes composed by Roger Manning as musical illustration. Raymond, who squired 2008's arresting Meet Glen Campbell, on which the artist matched his esteemed talents with vital material originated with such artists as Jackson Browne, U2, Green Day and even the Velvet Underground, here shapes a vision as unexpected as it is rewarding.