Rhinestone Cowboy - Remastered

"Rhinestone Cowboy" was written and originally recorded by Larry Weiss, a Brooklyn songwriter whose credits include "Bend Me, Shape Me" by The American Breed, "Help Me Girl" by The Animals and The Outsiders (both with Scott English). Campbell was on tour in Australia when he first heard the song. He bought a cassette copy and listened to it over an over. When he returned to America, he told Al Khoury, an A&R man at his record label, that he found a perfect song to record. Khoury replied that he also had a great song for Campbell... it was "Rhinestone Cowboy." Campbell took this bit of serendipity as a sign that he was destined to record it. The tune ended up becoming his signature song and a centerpiece of his live shows. Campbell could relate to the lyric about a country singer who has seen it all. In the 1950s he spent several years playing honky-tonks in Albuquerque, and after moving to Los Angeles in 1960 he worked as a demo singer, a staff writer, and a session musician before hitting it big in the late '60s after he turned 30.

Rhinestones are fake jewels that are popular on country-style clothing. They show up nicely on stage, so they are a popular fashion choice for some flamboyant country singers. One such singer was David Allan Coe, who called himself the "Rhinestone Cowboy" and released an album in 1974 called The Mysterious Rhinestone Cowboy. As Coe tells it, Mel Tillis gave him some Rhinestone suits, which he would wear backstage at the Grand Ol' Opry. When he went into the audience, the glistening suits made people think he was a star, even though he was a nobody at the time. Asked for autographs, he signed them, "The Mysterious Rhinestone Cowboy." Coe says that Larry Weiss offered him the song, but he didn't feel comfortable singing about himself so he turned it down.

Campbell wanted to accentuate the vocals on his version, since he loved the lyric. To do so, he overdubbed a harmony vocal that plays throughout the song.