A Note from the Author
First, I encourage anyone reading
this material to do some online
research on any of the people or
places mentioned that interest
you. There’s much more to know about
many of these varied people in Dr.
Campbell’s life…and in many cases, there
are numerous online photographs to
help illustrate all the stories. Also, in full
disclosure: I made an extensive effort to
do my best to only “edit” Dr. Campbell’s
personal story and to keep the narrative
in his own voice whenever possible. The
wording is primarily his, or from the notes I
made while interviewing him on numerous
occasions.
On one of my final trips to visit with
Dr. Campbell about the manuscript, and
still in awe of the scope and breadth of
Dr. Campbell’s life experiences, he began
playing an audio tape for me, a tape he
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had recorded while playing some of his
favorite music pieces on one of his two
keyboards (although he had a piano in
his house as well). Then we moved to
his living room, where he continued to
entertain me by playing a string of 1940s
through 1980s hit songs on his Hammond
organ, an instrument with an unusual
power source: a generator that requires
occasional oiling. (He keeps a small
can of oil on top of the console.) And he
played all of the tunes by memory! No
sheet music! In one word: amazing.
I asked Dr. Campbell if his father ever
commandeered him to play the organ at
the funeral home. “No,” he said. “Dad
didn’t. But when I was a member at Oak
Cliff Country Club, on the evenings when
the piano player didn’t show up in the
lounge, I would play for Happy Hour.”
Dr. Allen D. Campbell Jr. is a man whose
life has been heavily loaded with activities,
accomplishments, and associations, and
with contributions to both our society and
country. He has lived as a son, husband,
father, grandfather, great-grandfather,
student, physician, golfer, navy officer,
musician, and friend of Hollywood stars
and world-class athletes.
After compiling all the stories and
absorbing the entirety of Dr. Campbell’s
life, it seems fitting for me to make the
same statement about him as he made
about the story of his cousin, Sonny
Logan: What a life!
Gayla Brooks
July 2017; updated February 2020
Author’s Note: Dr. Campbell, now 96, lives
in a nursing home in Mansfield, Texas.
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