- Glen Campbell & Bob"Willard"Henke - Kansas City, MO. 1989
- Me & Glen - Kansas City, MO. circa 1989 copy.jpg (54.72 KiB) Viewed 15872 times
I wanted to post this here because Bob was a friend of Glen's Forum and had a wealth of information about Glen and his guitars.
Bob was primarily known as a founding member of Goose Creek Symphony, but there was a lot more to his career. He loved all genres of music, something that he picked up from his father, who was also a musician. Bob was a multi-instrumentalist and in the early 90s, he converted his garage into a recording studio by purchasing a lot of recording equipment from the DeVry School in 1994. During that time, he made a series of home recordings, playing all instruments and doing all the vocals himself. Unfortunately, none of these recordings were ever released commercially, however, he recorded dozens of songs, everything from “Walk, Don’t Run” to “Begin The Beguine” to “Ragtime Cowboy Joe”.
In the mid-1970s, Dr. Hook guitarist Rik Elswit was diagnosed with melanoma. Ted Hacker, who worked for both bands, suggested Bob to replace Elswit. "I got the call and a week later I was on the road". It was with Dr. Hook in the late 1970s that Willard was awarded "a couple of dozen gold silver and platinum albums". "That was my time to go around the world a few times and play on some top ten records like 'Sharing the Night Together' and 'When You're in Love with a Beautiful Woman' and 'Sexy Eyes' and those records. Getting to play with studio players that we used for those albums was fabulous: the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section and the A-Team in Nashville".
In the 1980s, Bob toured with Glen Campbell for six years, playing bass guitar. He posted here:
Bob was a true gentleman and a friend of this forum.I was the keeper of the guitars that Glen used on stage from 1987 to 1991 and was his Guitar Tech and Head Tech as well as the Bass Player with the Jeff Dayton Band. I loved Glen. He was a wonderful person to work with and as I told him once, "The best Frontman I ever had in a band".
Bob Playing Sleepwalk