Rhinestone Cowboy Book

With extraordinary candor intended to set the record straight, one of music's most popular performers tells of his sojourn amid the decadence and destructive trappings of fame - the bucks, the booze, the cocaine, the women - and of the religious awakening and unconditionally loving marriage that literally saved his life. Glen Campbell's boy-next-door persona belied his hedonistic, near-fatal lifestyle. It all started like a dream - the rise from ruthless poverty as one of twelve children in a small Arkansas town and the against-all struggle for stardom, first as a brilliant studio musician (behind artists such as Sinatra, Elvis, Ray Charles, and Nat King Cole), then as a solo performer who in the sixties and seventies sold some 45 million records (including the timeless classics "Wichita Lineman," "Gentle on My Mind," "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," and, of course, "Rhinestone Cowboy") and hosted his own top-rated TV show. Too quickly, though, the dream became a nightmare of mad spending, multiple marriages, and abusive and all-too-public affairs, as well as wildly escalating alcohol and cocaine dependencies that threatened not only his career but his very existence. Now a Christian and in recovery, he has stepped back into the spotlight a whole man at last. With the help of bestselling author Tom Carter, Glen Campbell has given us a book that is both a star-studded show-biz memoir and a spiritual testimony that radiates great faith and emotion. Rhinestone Cowboy is his personal gift of thanks to the millions who have supported him through decades of good times and bad - and to the vast new audience who have grown to know him through his frequent appearances on cable television's 700 Club and other Christian TV shows. "A lot of people are going to be surprised by my story, and I hope that a lot are going to be inspired," Campbell declares. "All I know for sure is that it's time to tell it. And as honestly as I can, that's just what I've gone and done."