Turn Up the Sound - Glen Campbell Covers Green Day

Glen Campbell was honored with a much-deserved Lifetime Achievement award at last night's Grammy Awards show in Los Angeles, and once again, I find myself digging into iTunes and YouTube to hear more of his music.

It doesn't take much for me to get nostalgic about the country music legend (oddly, this is my second Glen Campbell post in recent months). Growing up in northwest Florida with a family who always listened to music, country and otherwise, I had plenty of opportunity to listen to Glen Campbell. He is a genuinely gifted musician, and I have always appreciated his tender melodies and mournful vocals, but mostly, Glen Campbell just feels sincere to me. An authentic guy, who sings it like he means it.

In 2008, he released an album that featured cover versions of contemporary hits. He did a beautiful job with U2's "All I Want Is You" and "Sing" by the British band Travis. The song I enjoy most though is his cover of Green Day's "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)." What strikes me about "Good Riddance," and for that matter all of the covers on the 2008 album, is that if you listen to them while keeping in mind the many classics he penned forty years earlier, Campbell himself could have written all of these contemporary hit songs.

"It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right. I hope you had the time of your life."