Glen Campbell Forums

About the date for the 1977 concert at The Royal Festival Hall... found this review in my little newspaper archive (thanks to my GC pal Phillip Jones). The concert was recorded April 2, 1977.
So Glen started ending Rhinestone Cowboy with "and cowgirls!" somewhere between April 2 1977 and May 8 1981.
Or... he started doing it before that, but just didn't do it at The Royal Festival Hall...

Wups! Looks like I misread it...

Here's the opening of the 77 show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d720RII ... bSyIsfnACg

And nope- the tagline is NOT there, all of which throws my previous calculations utterly off.

Jay, you can have your money back.. and the rest of the jury will disregard the testimony of the man in hat.

At least until he's finished eating it!

Hi KMFrye54,
if I may correct you, what I said was that Glen did NOT add "and cowgirls" during his 1977 concert at the Festival Hall in London. He DID add it on his 1981 live album. That 1981 album was recorded on May 8, 1981 at the Cornwall Coliseum, Carlyon Bay, St. Austell, UK. I haven't found the exact date for the Royal Festival Hall concert yet, but usually Glen toured the UK in April, celebrating his birthday there too. I found one reference to Glen playing the Glasgow Apollo on April 15 1977. So I can think we can safely assume The Royal Festival Hall concert was in April/May 1977 (which fits your estimate on the recording date quite well actually). Somewhere between that date and May 8, 1981 Glen started adding "and cowgirls" at the end of Rhinestone Cowboy! I have old tapes of tv and concert appearances from that period so I might be able to pin it down more accurately. And of course we have to find the exact recording date for the Royal Festival Hall concert!

KM...I would have lost a TON of $$$ on that. I would have never guessed it was that early. Thanks for schooling!

Ok, so to re-cap a little: "Rhinestone Cowboy" came out in May of '75 and by 77 Glen was adding "and Cow gir-r-r-rls" to the end of the song, per the Royal Festival Hall concert.. The issue date of the Live album (November '77) isn't a lot of help, because it really does not equate to the date(s) of the actual show. I did locate a 1978 newspaper reference to "last spring" for a concert date, but even that is pretty vague. Still, let's be kind. Let's give the producers 6 months to pull all the bits together and get the copies in the stores for November. This makes the concert likely some time before May, 1977.

Narrows it down to about a 24 month span at the outside, and more likely less. So all we need is some first-hand evidence from a concert attendee (or even a bootleg tape) between May of 75 and May of 77 to see if he used the extra line or if it was literally "new" for the album.

What's interesting to me, is that those "enhancements" (imho) are remembered by his serious fans. Guitar solos, and cowgirlllllllllllllllll, and I'm doing fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnnneeeeeeeeeeee, or the galveston closing, such as In good ole Branson , Missouuuuurrrriiiiiiiiii, are remembered mostly by his most serious fans, and not so much by his casual fans. And of course I realize, those "enhancements" are fun things that were not needed on his hits when originally recorded, yet got a very noticeable positive reaction later from his serious fans when he started adding them in.

Think I confused myself writing this.

Ha you made me go and listen to some more concert recordings. Turns out Glen already did it on his 1981 Glen Campbell Live album, recorded in England. On Live at the Royal Festival Hall from 1977 he justs ends with ‘like a rhinestone cowboy”. So we have pinned it down to somewhere between 1977 and 1981! I wonder if we can get it even more accurate.

He was doing both in the PBS concert (with the South Dakota Symphony), if memory serves. That was in 2001.

So we can see him use those "extras" at least that far back.

That is a good question. We had a similar question once about... when did Glen start to add "and I'm doing fine" at the end of Wichita Lineman. In 1990, during the Doncaster (Live at the Dome) concert he still used "got a wichita woman/lady on his mind" at the end of the song. A few years later, during the Branson years, he had switched to "and I'm doing fine".

But I have no idea when he started adding "and cowgirls!!!" to Rhinestone Cowboy. Was it also during his time in Branson? Or earlier?

Any idea when Glen incorporated that into his routine? I wonder what female influence suggested it.