Wichita Lineman - Video
PUBLISHED:  Aug 09, 2017
DESCRIPTION:
Before I had written and recorded any of my albums... before I could play an instrument... maybe even before I could write my name... one of my cousins had a little tape recorder and made, as far as I know, the very first ever recording of Shawn Burgett singing ... it was a really goofy, squeaky little boy voice singing ' hot diggity dog' , about 30 times.. then ending with ' I'm a rhinestone cowboy!!' - obviously I was already aware of Glen Campbell. Here's the funny thing about it. I knew all the words to Rhinestone Cowboy all the way back then. I heard Wichita Lineman go by hundreds of times on the radio, etc., but for whatever reason it had always just done exactly that... It just went by... I was aware of it but never realized what the song was actually about or thought much about the lyrics. Around the time I recorded my second CD, I also co-produced an album for Kyle David Watts. David, as some of you probably know, is a pretty deep, thoughtful and talented guy. During one of the sessions he gave me a CD by Jimmy Webb, who wrote these songs, and many other classics. He's probably the reason that you have heard of Glen Campbell. David pointed out to me this particular song and how poetic and simplistic it was at the same time. To be honest, I thought he was being a little too deep about it at the time... but then I listened and for the first time I understood what the song was actually about. I've been in love with it ever since, in spite of how hard it is to sing and remember the chord changes. I have to imagine that Glen Campbell had exactly the same relationship with this song and a lot of Webb's other pieces... He recorded an awful lot of them. I was hesitant to try to record it or share it this way, because I knew I couldn't do it the way either of them had. But if there's anything that I have learned about writing and performing music, it's that you have to make yourself available to that little voice in your head when it's tugging on your ear or your heart and saying "this song needs to be played, there are people that don't know about it." - so... this is my little part of the circle... I hope you hear the song more clearly than I did the first 100 times it went by on the radio... And I hope you'll take the time to check both of these guys out in more detail. They're both monumental in their field. Thanks for listening. Thank God for life, love and music. -Shawn.
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