Rhinestone Cowboy
"Rhinestone Cowboy" is a song written and recorded by Larry Weiss in 1974, then popularized the next year by American country music singer Glen Campbell. When released on May 26, 1975, as the lead single and title track from his album Rhinestone Cowboy, it enjoyed huge popularity with both country and pop audiences.
This article is about the song. For other uses, see Rhinestone Cowboy (disambiguation)."Rhinestone Cowboy"
"Lovelight"
May 26, 1975
February 24–March 19, 1975
Sound Labs, Hollywood, California
3:15
Chart performance[edit]
Released in May 1975, "Rhinestone Cowboy" immediately caught on with both country and pop audiences. The song spent that summer climbing both the Billboard Hot Country Singles and Billboard Hot 100 charts before peaking at No. 1 by season's end – three nonconsecutive weeks on the country chart, two weeks on the Hot 100. Billboard ranked it as the No. 2 for 1975. It also topped the charts in Canada and several other countries.
During the week of September 13 – the week the song returned to No. 1 on the Billboard country chart, after having been nudged out for a week by "Feelins'" by Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn – "Rhinestone Cowboy" topped both the country and Hot 100 charts simultaneously. This was the first time a song had accomplished the feat since November 1961, when "Big Bad John" by Jimmy Dean did so.
"Rhinestone Cowboy" was one of six songs released in 1975 that topped both the Billboard Hot 100 and Hot Country Singles charts. The other songs were "Before the Next Teardrop Falls" by Freddy Fender, "(Hey Won't You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song" by B. J. Thomas, "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" and "I'm Sorry"/"Calypso," both by John Denver, and "Convoy" by C. W. McCall.
The song was also the sole Glen Campbell track in a promotional-only compilation album issued by Capitol records titled The Greatest Music Ever Sold (Capitol SPRO-8511/8512), that was distributed to record stores during the 1976 holiday season as part of Capitol's "Greatest Music Ever Sold" campaign, which promoted 15 "Best Of" albums released by the record label.
After Campbell's death in August 2017, "Rhinestone Cowboy" charted on the Country Digital Song chart at No. 12. As of August 2017, the song had been downloaded more than 368,000 times in the digital era in the United States.[7]
Re-recorded version[edit]
Campbell recorded a new version of the song on his 2013 studio album, See You There.[29]
Awards[edit]
"Rhinestone Cowboy" was certified gold for sales of 1 million units by the Recording Industry Association of America.[30]
The song became one of Glen Campbell's signature songs and won numerous awards from the Country Music Association, Academy of Country Music, and American Music Awards. It also obtained nominations for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male, as well as for Record of the Year, but did not win.