Glen Campbell is coming to the West Midlands one more time after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Daniel Wainwright reports.

Alzheimer’s disease has no respect for talent. You can be an international country singer with 45 million record sales under your belt. You may have won an award for your appearance alongside John Wayne in the classic Western True Grit.

But as Glen Campbell is finding out, this counts for nothing when it comes to dealing with this most cruel of illnesses.

It is the onset of Alzheimer’s which has forced the Campbell, renowned for his hits such as Rhinestone Cowboy, Wichita Lineman and By the Time I Get to Phoenix, to embark on his last world tour – a tour which will see him visit Birmingham’s Symphony Hall on November 6.

For most people in the West Midlands it will be the last time to see the 75-year-old perform live before he bows out of public life.

And it is a distressing time for his 53-year-old wife Kim, who reveals how her heart sank when the diagnosis of senile dementia was confirmed last year.

“I think I was braced for it”, she says.

“The indicators were there, so I kind of accepted it. You go through a stage of worry then you start trying to educate yourself. The last stages are horrifying. They can forget. They can’t hold their head up. I guess they can forget how to swallow.”

The couple, who live in Malibu, are trying to make the most of the time they have before the disease takes its toll on Campbell’s mind.

Kim said: “You have to keep everything happy and positive and just try to enjoy life no matter what you’re going through.

“It’s also terrifying, though. It’s sad and depressing to think about the future. We’re not at a severe stage yet but this thing always progresses.

“I try not to focus on that. I try to focus on making each day as happy as we can.

“We savour every experience with him while we still have him.”

Campbell’s new studio album, Ghost On The Canvas, was released yesterday and is expected to be his last.

While some more singles may be in the offing, the album begins to draw to a close a 50-year career which has seen him rack up 12 gold albums, four platinum albums and one double-platinum album.

His five children Debbie, aged 55, Cal, 28, Shannon, 26 and Ashley, 24, are members of his backing band.

His 2008 album Meet Glen Campbell was his 60th and won critical acclaim for featuring contemporary and classic hits by the likes of U2, John Lennon, the Foo Fighters and Green Day.

It introduced a whole new generation to his smooth vocals and layered arrangements.

But for many fans, Glen Campbell will always be about the classic country tracks, such as Rhinestone Cowboy which tells the tale of a struggling but ambitious performer searching for his big break in the face of adversity, a subject said to be dear to Campbell’s heart.

* Tickets to see Glen Campbell at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall are priced £28.50, £34.50 and £37.50 plus a £2 fee per transaction on all bookings except purchases made in person at the Box Office. To buy tickets call 0121 780 3333 or visit www.thsh.co.uk