"Gentle On My Mind" Please - Alzheimer's Strikes Glen Campbell!

75-year-old country singer, songwriter and guitarist Glen Campbell has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.  He and his wife, Kim, reported the news to People magazine.  Campbell said his condition that has prompted him to describe a new album due in late summer as his final recording.

"Glen is still an awesome guitar player and singer," Kim said in the interview. "But if he flubs a lyric or gets confused onstage, I wouldn’t want people to think, 'What's the matter with him? Is he drunk?' "

Campbell is planning a series of concerts this fall in support of the album, “Ghost on the Canvas,” due Aug. 30.

The singer plans to undertake what he’s calling the Glen Campbell Goodbye Tour upon the album’s release. The itinerary is still to be announced.

Campbell’s more than 50 year career stretches from his early years as a session guitarist in Los Angeles when he played on recordings by Phil Spector, the Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley The Smothers Brothers and many others, to his success as a solo artist with such hits as “Gentle on My Mind," “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” “Galveston” and “Rhinestone Cowboy,” to his years hosting the CBS-TV show “The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour”, to his film acting debut as LaBoeuf in the original film version of “True Grit,”  along side John Wayne.

Campbell recently told the L.A. Times "I made John Wayne look so good in a movie that he won his only Oscar."

“I still love making music,” Campbell told People Magazine. “And I still love performing for my fans. I’d like to thank them for sticking with me through thick and thin.”

During his 50 years in show business, Campbell released more than 70 albums, sold 45 million records and racked up 12 RIAA Gold albums, 4 Platinum albums and 1 Double-Platinum album.  

Campbell recorded his only full bluegrass album Big Bluegrass Special  along with the Green River Boys (his first album) in 1962.