Ashley Campbell: 'I’m so proud of my dad for coming out publicly with Alzheimer's'
Ashley Campbell plays in West Cork at the weekend; right, the late Glen Campbell.
A bittersweet cloud hangs over Ashley Campbell’s memories of the time she played Dublin with her father Glen Campbell in 2011. The gig was a knockout and the audience responded with voracious enthusiasm to Campbell classics such as Wichita Lineman and By The Time I Get To Phoenix. But her dad had recently gone public with an Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Everyone understood the final curtain beckoned. He would pass away in 2017 aged 81.
“Shane MacGowan from the Pogues came by to say hi, so that was really cool,” she says. “I remember that being a really special show and my dad was really on point that night and just nailed every song. He really connected with the audience that night.”
After her father passed, his daughter explored her feelings about his music, his legacy and his illness in song. And from this period of reflection came her extraordinary 2020 record Something Lovely, which she now brings to Ireland with a live date at De Barra’s in Clonakilty on May 8.
As with any LP assembled in the shadow of grief, there is a lot in it to unpack. The key track is probably Remembering in which she fondly reflects on her childhood and her dad’s subsequent health issues. “Never had to ask you to smile for me,” she sings. “It's just the way you put me at ease.”
“With an Alzheimer's diagnosis or anything kind of like that, you realise you only have a finite amount of time with someone,” says Campbell (36).
“It makes time very precious. And even through the difficult times, of which there were many, it was still an honour to get to know my dad better and to play with him on stage. And a privilege to be able to help take care of him.”
She admires her father for going public with his Alzheimer’s diagnosis, as he did in June 2011 before his farewell tour. At the time, few people with a profile had spoken about the condition. Glen Campbell did his bit to make it easier to talk about Alzheimer’s.
“I’m so proud of my dad for coming out publicly,” says Ashley. “I believe he’s helped a lot of people to see that they're not alone in what they’re going through. He brought it out into the public eye and made it okay to talk about. That it’s not something that should be hidden.”
Ashley Campbell came relatively late to country music. Raised in Phoenix, Arizona she studied theatre at college. She only returned to the family business when her father asked her to go on the road playing banjo.
“I was living in LA. I had just graduated as a theatre major. I love to travel and when I graduated, my dad was going on tour to Australia and New Zealand and I thought it sounded like a fun time. So I asked if I could tag along. And he said, ‘Yeah, but hey, now that you play banjo, why don't you play along’. So I kind of got roped into playing in the band and completely fell in love with it.”
Her father’s life and his illness were explored in the 2014 documentary I’ll Be Me. Ashley feels that it was important that the film frankly address his Alzheimer’s, which it did in a respectful fashion.
“It was important to us that if we were going to make a documentary about what we were going through that we wouldn’t pull any punches while still while still maintaining his dignity. So there's definitely some worse things that we left out. To preserve his dignity. But of course we had to show the ugly side of Alzheimer's.
Glen Campbell had huge respect for Ireland and its musical legacy. His daughter feels likewise and is looking forward to returning to West Cork and to De Barra’s, a venue she was delighted to have played previously.
“So much American banjo comes from Celtic [music]. I love walking into a pub and catching a session. Even though I don't know a lot of the Irish folk songs, yes. I love jamming with people and, and I feel a great kinship with Ireland. My father's mother – my grandma – her family came straight from Ireland. Their last name before she got married to my Grandpa Campbell was Stone. So I feel very Celtic.”
- Ashley Campbell plays De Barra’s in Clonakilty, Sunday, May 8
