Bloodline

Album review

Like its immediate predecessor, Rhinestone Cowboy, 1976's Bloodline is produced by Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter and is something of a very loose concept album, where about half the songs have distinct thematic undercurrents that help bring the record together as a whole. Here, many of the songs address familial situations, whether it's relations between a man and wife or a man and his child. So, the title Bloodline does indeed have significance; even if not every song here fits a particular theme, it certainly has an undercurrent of how a man is tied to his kin, his bloodline. While this record didn't produce crossover hits on the level of "Rhinestone Cowboy" or "Country Boy (You Got Your Feet in LA" -- only the deliberate pop crossover medley of "Don't Pull Your Love/Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye," easily the weakest moment on the record, reached the Top Ten on either the pop or country charts -- Bloodline is in many ways stronger than the Rhinestone Cowboy album, because it follows through its themes better and has a slightly stronger, or at least more consistent, set of songs. Glen Campbell is at his most effective when he's singing songs that are at least tangentially related to the main theme. Take the two tales of fatherhood: The joint custody epic "See You on Sunday," where he says goodbye to his kid for the weekend, is as heart-wrenching as the fatherly advice in "Christiaan No" is moving. But it's not just the songs that flow into the "bloodline" theme that work -- "Everytime I Sing a Love Song" is a lovely ballad and Lambert/Potter's opener, "Baby Don't Be Givin' Me Up," is deceptively cheerful and all the stronger for it. And the same could be said for the album -- it's soothing on the surface, but dig deeper, and real pain can be heard, making Bloodline one of Campbell's most complex, and best, records.

© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo