Exclusive: Ashley Campbell Feels Glen Campbell’s Influence in ‘The Lonely One’ Debut Album

Ashley Campbell comes by her musical talent honestly. The daughter of the late Glen Campbell, the 31-year-old played and sang on her father’s farewell tour, which ended in 2012 due to the progression of Alzheimer’s disease, before launching her own career as a singer-songwriter.

Campbell spent time after she came off the road, figuring out what her music done her way would sound like. The result became her freshman album, The Lonely One, out May 11 on her own Whistle Stop Records.

“This record is very much a labor of love,” Campbell tells PopCulture.com. “I finally just, after all the Nashville stuff and other people trying to dictate what kind of music I do, I just decided, I’m going to make my own record the way I want to make it. And so, I flew out to California, and my brother Cal and I co-produced the record together. He has a studio out there in Los Angeles. We just kind of wood-shedded the whole thing, and spent long nights just experiencing. Most of the time it was just me and Cal in the studio.”

The Lonely One also includes her brother Shannon, who joined his sister and Cal during Glen Campbell’s final tour.

“Shannon co-wrote one of the songs on the album,” Campbell adds. “He co-wrote ‘Looks Like Time,’ and then he played guitar on some of these songs, and he sang some background vocals.”

With all 11 songs co-written by Campbell, it’s hard for the Arizona native to pick the track she likes best, although there is one that might beat out the others, mostly because of the message in the lyric.

“It’s hard to choose,” Campbell concedes. “But I think my favorite one that I liked to listen to over and over again is the last track on the record. It’s called ‘Nothing Day.’ It’s just so positive. It involves doing nothing, because I love laying on the couch and watching Netflix. I travel a lot and I get to do all these exciting things, which is awesome and I love it, but sometimes you just need a break, and sometimes the best thing in the world is just doing nothing with someone that you love.”

Campbell relocated to Nashville in 2014, the same year her father’s Alzheimer’s progressed to the point that he needed full-time residential care. But with her newfound freedom came the arduous task of writing, and then narrowing down, the songs that would become The Lonely One.

“I learned a lot when I moved to Nashville; good things, bad things, what I want, what I don’t want. I don’t think the record would be what it is if I had made it right away. I needed to go through what I went through, and I think that’s why it took so long to put out my debut record.”

Although Campbell’s father is not around to hear his youngest child’s first record, his influence permeates throughout each of the songs.

“My dad always told me, as often as he could, to just do what you love, because you love doing it, and not to do it because you think someone else will like it,” Campbell says. “And so, that’s my rule of thumb with my music is, do I like this? Would I listen to this? Will I enjoy playing this for the rest of my life? And so, the record is just stuff that I love, and I made it the way I wanted to make it.”

Campbell will perform at the annual CMA Fest in Nashville, Tenn. on June 9. More information can be found on Campbell’s website.

Photo Credit: Instagram/AshCamBanjo