Country music fans all over the world mourned when Glen Campbell went public in 2011 with his battle with Alzheimer’s disease. But no one mourned the illness, or its affects, more than his family, including his youngest daughter, Ashley, who was on the road with her father as the disease began taking its toll.
“Every day was different,” Campbell recalls to The Guardian. “It was either a struggle or a delight – or both. There would be times when you would see him during the day and wonder if he would be able to say a complete sentence on stage. And then he’d go on and nail it and be Glen Campbell.
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“Sometimes he had pretty tough shows where he got maybe one thing right,” she continues. “It was a roll of the dice. We made sure we crafted the show for him so it was like riding a bicycle. We got really ambitious at the beginning, trying to put in songs from his latest album [See You There], but we quickly realized that if he doesn’t already know it, it’s not going to happen.”
Campbell, a singer-songwriter now launching her own career, didn’t necessarily plan on becoming her father’s caretaker right out of college. But when she saw how much her father needed her, she put her plans on hold to stay with her famous father.
“I definitely felt like I was missing out,” Campbell concedes. “That was the time I was supposed to be getting my own place and starting my adult life. There is a part of me that wishes I could have known what that was like, but I don’t regret my decision, though I always wonder, ‘What if?’”
Glen Campbell passed away in August, a day that was met with both sadness and relief.
“I’m glad it didn’t last as long as it could have,” says the singer. “One day, the doctors were saying it could be three to six weeks; the next, two weeks; half a day later, 24 hours to three days. So we called in the troops and everyone was around him. We just sat with him and held his hand.”
Campbell’s freshman album, The Lonely One, will be released in March. Her debut single, “A New Year,” is available for download on iTunes.
Photo Credit: Instagram/ashcambanjo
