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Jimmy Webb

 
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Jimmy Webb

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Singer, songwriter

For almost 30 years, Jimmy Webb has been a master of the art of writing love songs. Few composers’ songs have burst on the scene with the impact Webb’s creations made in the years from 1966 to 1969. "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," "Wichita Lineman," and "MacArthur Park" spearheaded a string of hits so enduring that the Webb catalogue ranks second in total airplay only to the songs of John Lennon and Paul McCartney of the Beatles. More important than that commercial success, however, Jimmy Webb stands tall among the handful of writers who have significantly expanded the vocabulary of contemporary popular song.

Jimmy Layne Webb was born on August 15, 1946, in Elk City, Oklahoma. His father, Robert Lee Webb, was a Baptist minister, and young Jimmy learned piano and organ to accompany the choir in the elder Webb’s rural churches in southwestern Oklahoma and west Texas. Later discussing his 1990 composition "Elvis and Me," Webb explained in Song Talk how he had come to discover to the music of the King of Rock, Elvis Presley: "When I was a kid growing up I wasn’t allowed to listen to Elvis. My father always controlled the radio very empirically and it was always either country music or white gospel music, quartet music. And we weren’t allowed to touch that dial because if we did we would get smacked."

Part of the reason for Webb’s strict adherence to certain music types was religious, and part was simply his own taste. Still, after hearing Presley’s music, he found himself bitten by the music bug. He began slipping his own arrangement variations into the Sunday services, much to the displeasure of the straight-laced church elders. Or, he would organize clandestine combos at school to play the music that was forbidden at home. Webb also began writing songs of his own. Hearing something in a stolen moment listening to the radio, he would try to write a follow-up to it.

Webb’s family moved to southern California in 1964, and Jimmy entered San Benardino Valley College. When his mother died and the family returned to Oklahoma the following year, he elected to remain in California. Though a music major at the college, Webb was hearing his own music; it wasn’t long before he decided to see how far his songs would take him in Los Angeles.

"Up, up and Away"
Webb’s first job was transcribing other people’s music for a small music publisher on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. But within a year he had secured a contract with Jobete Music, the publishing arm of increasingly

westward-looking Motown Records. The result of this brief liaison was Webb’s first royalty check—for a song on a Supremes Christmas album—and his first hit tune, "Honey Come Back," which Glenn Campbell would re-release in 1970.

Webb’s big break came in meeting Johnny Rivers the following year. Rivers, as shrewd a music businessman as he was a successful recording artist, signed Webb to a publishing deal and put one of Jimmy’s new songs, "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," on his late 1966 album, Changes. Rivers also enlisted Webb’s help in finding material for a group on Rivers’s own Soul City Records called the Fifth Dimension.

Webb subsequently penned "Up, up and Away," the title track of the debut Fifth Dimension album. Released as a single in May of 1967, it leaped into the Top Ten and battled the Doors’ "Light My Fire" for chart supremacy throughout that summer. Glen Campbell, meanwhile, had covered Webb’s "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," which, though only reaching Number 26, became an immediate pop standard.

At the 1967 Grammy Award ceremonies "Up, Up and Away" was named record of the year and song of the year. Altogether, "Up, Up and Away" and "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" collected a staggering eight Grammys. Such acclaim was unprecedented for a rookie songwriter, but it also presented what would be the central dilemma in Webb’s career. Only 21, his melodic sophistication and orchestral sensibility was embraced by an older, more traditional pop audience. While his peers were dropping out and going underground, their parents were swaying to the melodies of Jimmy Webb. He was a man out of sync. But so explosive was his momentum, that it overwhelmed any other considerations.

The year 1968 was a blur of continuing success for Webb songs. The Fifth Dimension hit the Top 40 with both "Paper Cup" and "Carpet Man." Glen Campbell came back with the million-selling "Wichita Lineman," which Creem magazine once called "one of the most perfect pop records ever made." Also in 1968, Brooklyn Bridge, the group led by former Crests vocalist Johnny Maestro, scored a gold record for "The Worst That Could Happen."

Produced Immensely Popular Songs
Webb soon formed his own production and publishing company, Canopy, and his first project was an unlikely album pairing with Irish actor Richard Harris, then coming off a starring role in the film version of Camelot. Among the tracks cut was an extended piece with multiple movements that the group Association had originally commissioned Webb to compose. When asked to edit it for Top 40 airplay, Jimmy refused. Such was Webb’s commercial clout that radio stations played all seven minutes and twenty-one seconds of "MacArthur Park." It reached Number Two on the singles chart, while the album, A Tramp Shining, stayed on the charts for almost a year. Before the year was out, a second Harris-Webb album, The Yard Went on Forever, was also on the charts.

"MacArthur Park," "Wichita Lineman," and "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" all won 1968 Grammys. Glen Campbell started 1969 with a gold record with Webb’s "Galveston," considered one of the most effective antiwar songs ever written, and hit later in the year with another Webb composition, "Where’s the Playground Susie." "Didn’t We" was included on the first Richard Harris album and became a standard despite only rising to Number 63. Perhaps more interestingly, two Webb songs became hits for the second time. Isaac Hayes’s soul interpretation of "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" and Waylon Jennings’s Grammy-winning country version of "MacArthur Park" showed how deeply Webb’s songs influence many facets of the music world.

Even as the popularity of his material was cresting in 1969, Webb was withdrawing from his instant empire. The title of a semiautobiographical Broadway musical he was working on around this time, His Own Dark City, seemed to indicate that the emotional displacement of his success was weighing heavily. He contributed music to the films How Sweet It Is and Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here in 1969, but no new Webb songs were blazing up the charts.

Personal Freedom
Words and Music, Webb’s debut album as the performer of his own songs, was released in late 1970. The songwriter "had exhausted one avenue of musical expression," wrote Jon Landau in Rolling Stone, "and he has now shifted into a context that allows him more personal freedom. It’s unlikely that he will achieve comparable popularity in his new surroundings, but his music has never sounded better than it does on Words and Music." Landau singled out the track "P. F. Sloan," calling it a "masterpiece" that "could not be improved upon."

Unfortunately, Landau’s comment about Webb’s commercial success proved prescient. "P. F. Sloan" set the tone for Webb’s career as a performer; he was critically lauded, frequently covered, but not nearly as successful as he was as a songsmith. The numbers, however, told only part of the story. Though a singer of modest gifts, each of his albums as a performer became noted for their inventive, satisfying music and memorable lyrics.

Rolling Stone called Webb’s 1971 album And So: On "another impressive step in the conspiracy to recover his identity from the housewives of America and rightfully install him at the forefront of contemporary composers/performers." Upon the release of Letters in 1972, Peter Reilly of Stereo Review wrote, "Jimmy Webb is the most important pop music figure to emerge since Bob Dylan." Similar praise met the release of 1974’s Land’s End, 1977’s El Mirage, and 1982’s Angel Heart.

Webb’s albums may not have been chart climbers, but they did not go completely unnoticed. Having become known as a "singer’s songwriter," Webb saw the best crooners in the business plunder his albums for the many gems they contained. Judy Collins, Joe Cocker, Art Garfunkel, Linda Ronstadt, Cher, Lowell George, Joan Baez, and Amy Grant are just a few of the artists who have made Webb material a staple of their repertoires.

Webb still had his share of commercial hits. "All I Know," for example, remains Garfunkel’s only Top Ten solo hit. Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, Kris Kristoffer-son, and Willie Nelson topped the charts in 1985 with "The Highwayman," earning Webb yet another Grammy for best country song of the year and a Country Music Association citation for single of the year. In addition, "MacArthur Park" continued to earn notice when the Four Tops recorded it in 1970 and Donna Summer’s disco rendition of the tune stayed at Number One for almost a month in the fall of 1978.

Contemporary Admiration
Webb moved to New York City in the mid-1980s to try his hand at Broadway musicals, prompting collaborations with Peter Stone on Love Me, Love My Dog and with science fiction writer Ray Bradbury on Dandelion Wine. In 1986 CBS Records issued an album of the Webb cantata The Animals’ Christmas, featuring Garfunkel, Amy Grant, and the London Symphony Orchestra. Webb continued contributing music to films—including Doc, The Last Unicorn, The Hanoi Hilton, and Fern Gulley: The Last Rain Forest— and wrote scores for television projects headed by such stars as Olivia Newton-John, Ringo Starr, and Steven Spielberg.

Linda Ronstadt, who has consistently championed Webb’s songwriting, coaxed him back into the recording studio for the 1993 release of Suspending Disbelief. Coproduced by Ronstadt and George Massenburg, it was referred to by Time as "an important record of an American tale teller, our best raveler of the blind spots of the heart."

Given his 1960s mega-success as a songwriter and the enduring appeal of his songs for both singers and pop music fans, it seems safe to say that Jimmy Webb’s position in pop music history is secure. In fact, his stature is sure to increase as future song connoisseurs discover the depth of inspiration that lies beneath the surface sheen of Webb’s chart hits and pop standards.

Selected discography
Words and Music, Reprise, 1970.And So: On, Reprise, 1971.Letters, Reprise, 1972.Land’s End, Asylum, 1974.El Mirage, Atlantic 1977. Angel Heart, Columbia, 1982.The Animals’ Christmas, Columbia, 1986.Suspending Disbelief, Elektra, 1993.

Sources
Billboard, October 2, 1993.
Creem, October 1972; November 1974.
Newsweek, December 23, 1968; June 13, 1977.
New Yorker, January 9, 1971.
New York Times, September 29, 1993.
Rolling Stone, March 4, 1971; September 2, 1971; October 14, 1993; April 21, 1994.
SongTalk, winter 1989; spring 1994.
Stereo Review, November 1972
Time, May 24, 1968; October 18, 1993.
Additional material for this profile was obtained from Columbia Records publicity materials, 1982, and Elektra Records publicity materials, 1993.
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AMG AllMusic Guide: Pop Artists:

Jimmy Webb

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  • Genres: Rock

Biography

Jimmy Webb is that rarity in rock music, a professional songwriter who achieved stardom in that capacity. Rock music has its share of great songwriters, but most of them -- Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Gene Clark, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Pete Townshend -- became best known for their own recordings of their best work. Webb has also performed live, and recorded fairly extensively, but his performing career never approached his success as a composer. His songwriting was sufficiently distinctive to make him one of the few stars of that profession outside of the Broadway stage during the 1960s. Between 1966 and 1969 alone, he was responsible for writing such platinum-selling classics as "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," "Wichita Lineman," "Up, Up and Away," "MacArthur Park," and "Didn't We," producing and arranging the hit versions of several of those songs. Webb, in fact, may well have kept the craft of the songwriter in popular music alive and kicking in a new generation of popular music, saving the songwriting profession from being ghettoized onto the Broadway stage and the world of the commercial jingle.

Along with his personal idol Burt Bacharach, Webb is one of the few non-performing artists of the '60s to achieve public stardom as well as professional acclaim, which has endured across decades and dozens of stylistic trends in popular music. With his success -- marked by gold and platinum records -- as a composer, arranger, and producer, and his periodic recordings of his own, Webb is possibly the closest figure that the post-pop music generation has produced to approximate Hoagy Carmichael.

Jimmy Webb was born the son of a Baptist minister in Elk City, Oklahoma, on August 15, 1946. An avid music enthusiast as a boy, he made his first public appearance as a performer playing the organ at his father's church, and even then, he improvised, rearranged, and re-harmonized the hymns. In his teens, he began his composing career with religious songs, and later led his own rock & roll band. His interest in music intersected with his love of literature and writing, and even in his teens, Webb was able to dissect the popular songs around him, and began turning his attention to writing informal "follow-up" efforts. He quickly realized that his songs were sometimes superior to the originals, and set his sights on a career as a songwriter.

Webb soon took off for Los Angeles, where his first job in music was transcribing other people's songs. During this period, as he made the rounds of publishing houses, he wrote a bittersweet romantic ballad entitled "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," which languished for two years. Finally, in 1966, Johnny Rivers recorded the song, which became a modest hit; Glen Campbell later cut it as well, and scored a gold record. Meanwhile, Webb was put in charge of the songs for the first album of a fledgling pop group called the Fifth Dimension; the result was a chart-topping, million-selling single, "Up, Up and Away." Between them, "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" and "Up, Up and Away" won eight Grammy Awards the following year, and turned Jimmy Webb into the most prominent songwriter of his generation.

Like many of his peers, Webb had begun thinking of longer compositions and more coherent bodies of songs, and soon wrote "MacArthur Park," which fit into the new spirit of the era. The lyrics, although not truly psychedelic, were as rich and ornate as anything the Beatles or the Beach Boys were experimenting with; Webb saw the arrangement of the song as a vast sonic canvas, filled with the combined sounds of a rock combo -- comprised of such top L.A. session men as Larry Knechtel, Joe Osborn, and Hal Blaine, among others -- and a full orchestra and choir. He originally offered the song to the Association, who rejected it. Undaunted, Webb decided to record the piece on his own, and persuaded his friend, the actor Richard Harris, to sing "MacArthur Park"; after Webb recorded the orchestral part in Los Angeles, Harris' voice was added on at a studio in Dublin.

Webb tried selling "MacArthur Park" to several major labels, including Columbia Records, and was rejected; nobody felt that a seven-plus-minute single by an actor scarcely known as a singer had any chance of being played, much less becoming a hit. Luckily, Lou Adler's Dunhill Records, a Los Angeles-based independent outfit associated with ABC Records, felt differently, and bought the single and the accompanying album, A Tramp Shining. "MacArthur Park" climbed to number two on the American pop charts over a period of 13 weeks, and in the process shattered every preconception of air-time restrictions on AM radio. As Webb later recalled, even stations that didn't want to play the entire single complete were forced to, because their competitors were doing it, and it was too big a hit to ignore. A Tramp Shining also became a hit album, rising as high as number four in July of 1968 and becoming one of the bigger LP successes in Dunhill's '60s output.

Jimmy Webb became as big a music star as Richard Harris did off of "MacArthur Park" and A Tramp Shining. He was credited and his photo appeared on the picture sleeve of the singles, as big as Harris' name and image. Those were the days when concept albums were becoming the rage, and not just from rock artists; Rod McKuen was recording them himself and writing them for others, and Frank Sinatra, who'd been doing albums built around conceptual ideas since the early '50s, grew even more ambitious (and would later hook up with Webb). And the Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, and dozens of other artists were successfully selling popular music ideas that took up whole sides, or both sides of LPs. And Jimmy Webb was suddenly in their ranks, as visible as any of them, and with a hit to his credit as big as anything that George Martin as a producer or Nelson Riddle as an arranger had signed their names to, respectively. Webb and Harris' second album together, The Yard Went on Forever, was an even more impressive work, with Harris in better voice and Webb writing some of the most haunting lyrics and melodies of his career. The album, lacking a single to match the caliber of "MacArthur Park," never sold as well, but it was an even more prodigious musical achievement.

In the meantime, Glen Campbell's version of Webb's "Wichita Lineman" became a gold record and one of the biggest singles of his career; other Webb-penned hits that followed included "Galveston," "The Worst That Could Happen," "Carpet Man," and "Paper Cup." He also wrote and arranged Thelma Houston's 1969 album Sunshower, and in 1970 wrote his first feature film score, for Abraham Polonsky's Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here. When a number of intended theatrical projects failed to come to fruition, Webb decided to use the unexpected hiatus to his advantage to mount a solo career. He'd previously only been represented on record by an early album of unfinished demos issued by Columbia Records against his wishes, and his first serious ventures into public performance were conducted almost as an underground effort, without much publicity or fanfare. His fans did attend and enjoy them, but his club performances were an acquired taste, marred by his somewhat ragged singing and piano playing. Webb was perhaps closer in spirit to a Leonard Cohen (or, perhaps, Bob Dylan back in his folk club days), presenting his hit songs as much more personal expressions.

An elaborately produced and recorded 1970 official debut album, Words & Music, was followed a year later by the more basic, stripped-down And So On, which included a contribution from jazz guitarist Larry Coryell. Released in 1972, Letters was highlighted by Webb's own rendition of "Galveston," as well as his Righteous Brothers' homage "Just One Time," and featured a cameo appearance by Joni Mitchell, who returned for 1974's Land's End. Webb continued to write and produce throughout the decade, including 1973's The Supremes Arranged and Produced by Jimmy Webb and Glen Campbell's 1974 Reunion; 1975's Earthbound put him back with the Fifth Dimension, and he also wrote and produced for Joan Baez, Joe Cocker, and Frank Sinatra, the latter going out of his way to mention Webb during live performances on more than one occasion. Both Glen Campbell and Judy Collins cut the haunting Webb tune "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress." And Art Garfunkel's 1978 Watermark -- in large part a Webb songwriting showcase -- was another huge success for all concerned.

Webb's own 1977 album, El Mirage, produced by George Martin, included a new song called "The Highwayman," which was later turned into a hit by a quartet of Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, and Waylon Jennings. In 1983, Webb ventured into a new field of music, writing the cantata "The Animals' Christmas," a telling of the Christmas story from the point of view of animals, which had its premiere at New York's Cathedral of St. John the Divine, conducted by the composer and featuring Garfunkel among the performers. In 1988, Webb returned to doing live concerts, accompanied by Coryell, and in 1996 he released the solo recording Ten Easy Pieces, featuring new interpretations of some of his best-known songs. In 1998, Webb's first book, Tunesmith: Inside the Art of Songwriting, was published by Hyperion Press. And in 1999, Australia's Raven Records, which had previously released The Webb Sessions 1968-1969, issued Reunited with Jimmy Webb, a collection of Glen Campbell's recordings of Webb's music from the '70s onward.

England's Debutante Records has also issued a multi-artist tribute compilation to Webb, And Someone Left the Cake Out in the Rain..., featuring performances of his music by Campbell, Linda Ronstadt, the Four Tops, Judy Collins, the Johnny Mann Singers, and others. A concert set, Live and at Large, appeared in 2008. In 2009, Webb teamed up with his three sons -- Christiaan, Justin, and James, aka the touring and recording outfit the Webb Brothers -- to record Cottonwood Farm, released that same year on Proper Records (the U.S. release came two years later in 2011). He released Just Across the River in 2010 on E1 Music. The set features some of his best-known songs, with contributions from fellow artists including Glen Campbell, Mark Knopfler, Linda Ronstadt, Lucinda Williams, Jackson Browne, Michael McDonald, Billy Joel, Willie Nelson, J.D. Souther, and Vince Gill. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi
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Jimmy Webb

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Jimmy Webb

Jimmy Webb at
Knuckleheads Saloon
in Kansas City, Missouri
February 10, 2012
Background information
Born August 15, 1946 (1946-08-15) (age 65)
Elk City, Oklahoma US
Genres Popular, country, rock
Occupations Songwriter, Composer, Singer
Instruments vocals, piano
Years active 1966–present
Labels Epic, Reprise, Asylum, Atlantic, Columbia, Elektra
Website www.jimmywebb.com

Jimmy Webb (born August 15, 1946) is an American songwriter, composer, and singer. He wrote numerous platinum selling classics, including "Up, Up and Away", "By the Time I Get to Phoenix", "Wichita Lineman", "Galveston", "The Worst That Could Happen", "All I Know", and "MacArthur Park".[1] His songs have been recorded or performed by Glen Campbell, The 5th Dimension, Thelma Houston, The Supremes, Richard Harris, Johnny Maestro, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Isaac Hayes, Art Garfunkel, Amy Grant, America, Linda Ronstadt, R.E.M., Michael Feinstein, and Carly Simon, among others. According to BMI, his song "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" was the third most performed song in the fifty years between 1940 to 1990.[2] Webb is the only artist to have ever received Grammy Awards for music, lyrics, and orchestration.[3][4]

Contents

Early life

Jimmy Layne Webb was born August 15, 1946 in Elk City, Oklahoma. His father, Robert Lee Webb, was a Baptist minister and former member of the United States Marine Corps who presided over rural churches in southwestern Oklahoma and west Texas. With his mother's encouragement, Webb learned piano and organ, and by the age of 12 was playing in the choir of his father's churches, accompanied by his father on guitar and his mother on accordion. Webb grew up in a conservative religious home where his father restricted radio listening to country music and white gospel music.

During the late 1950s, Webb started writing songs, influenced by the church music he played and also by some of the new music he heard, including Elvis Presley. In 1961, at the age of 14, he bought his first record, "Turn Around, Look at Me" by Glen Campbell. Webb was drawn to the singer's distinctive voice.[5]

In 1964, Webb and his family moved to Southern California, where he attended San Bernardino Valley College studying music. Following the death of his mother in 1965, his father made plans to return to Oklahoma. Webb decided to stay in California to continue his music studies and to pursue a career as a songwriter in Los Angeles. As father and son said goodbye in San Bernardino, Webb would later recall his father saying, "This songwriting thing is going to break your heart." But seeing that his son was determined to be a success, he gave his son $40. "It's not much", he said, "but it's all I have."[5]

Early songwriting success

After transcribing other people's music for a small music publisher, Webb was signed to a songwriting contract with Jobete Music, the publishing arm of Motown Records. The first commercial recording of a Jimmy Webb song was "My Christmas Tree" by The Supremes, which appeared on their 1965 Merry Christmas album. The following year, Webb met singer and producer Johnny Rivers, who signed him to a publishing deal and recorded his song "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" on his 1966 album Changes.[6]

In 1967, Rivers turned to Webb for songs for a new group Rivers was producing called The 5th Dimension. Webb contributed five songs to their début album Up, Up and Away. The song "Up, Up and Away" was released as a single in May 1967 and reached the Top Ten. The group's follow-up album, The Magic Garden, was also released in 1967 and featured eleven Jimmy Webb songs, including "The Worst That Could Happen".[6] In November 1967, Glen Campbell released his version of "By the Time I Get to Phoenix", which reached No. 26 and became an instant pop standard.[7] At the 1967 Grammy Awards, "Up, Up and Away" was named Record of the Year and Song of the Year. "Up, Up and Away" and "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" received eight Grammy Awards between them. Webb's success as a new songwriter was unprecedented, and underscored what became the central dilemma in his career. While his sophisticated melodies and orchestrations were embraced by mainstream audiences, his peers were embracing counter-culture sounds. Webb was quickly becoming out of sync with his times.[7]

In 1968, Time acknowledged Webb's range and proficiency when it referred to his string of hits, noting "Webb's gift for strong, varied rhythms, inventive structures, and rich, sometimes surprising harmonies."[4] That year, the string of successful Webb songs continued with The 5th Dimension's "Paper Cup" and "Carpet Man" reaching the Top 40, Glen Campbell's "Wichita Lineman" selling over a million copies, and Johnny Maestro & The Brooklyn Bridge scoring a gold record with "The Worst That Could Happen", a song originally recorded by The 5th Dimension.[7] Webb formed his own production and publishing company that year, Canopy, and scored a hit with its first project, an unlikely album with Irish actor Richard Harris singing an album of all Jimmy Webb songs. One of the songs, "MacArthur Park", was a long, complex piece with multiple movements that was originally rejected by the group the Association, which had commissioned it. Despite the song's seven minute, twenty-one second length, Webb released "MacArthur Park" as a single, and it quickly reached Number 2 on the singles chart. The Richard Harris album A Tramp Shining stayed on the charts for almost a year. Webb and Harris produced a followup album, The Yard Went On Forever, which was also successful. At the 1968 Grammy Awards, Webb accepted awards for "By the Time I Get to Phoenix", "Wichita Lineman", and "MacArthur Park".[7]

In 1969, Glen Campbell continued the streak of Jimmy Webb hits with the gold record "Galveston" and "Where's the Playground Susie", quickly becoming the finest interpreter of Jimmy Webb songs. Webb and Campbell had first met during the production of a General Motors commercial. Webb arrived at the recording session with his Beatle-length hair and approached the conservative singer, who looked up from his guitar and said, "Get a haircut."[5] That same year, two Jimmy Webb songs became hits for the second time with Isaac Hayes' soulful version of "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" and Waylon Jennings' Grammy-winning country version of "MacArthur Park". Webb finished up the year by writing, arranging, and producing Thelma Houston's first album, Sunshower.[6] As the decade came to a close, so too did Webb's string of hit singles. He began to withdraw from the formulaic process in which he worked and began to experiment with his music. He started work on a semi-autobiographical Broadway musical called His Own Dark City, which reflected the emotional displacement he felt at the time. He also wrote music for the films How Sweet It Is! and Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here.[7]

Singer-songwriter years

Webb's solo career got off to a rough start with the 1968 "counterfeit" solo album Jimmy Webb sings Jimmy Webb (Epic), which was produced, according to Webb, "by a bunch of ruffians from some old demos of mine and tarted up to sound like 'MacArthur Park'. It was quite a piece of crap and was received with great anticipation and crushing disappointment at the radio level."[8]

Beginning in 1970, Webb recorded six original albums of his own songs: Words and Music (1970), And So: On (1971), Letters (1972), Land's End (1974), El Mirage (1977), and Angel Heart (1982). Despite the critical reception that followed each of these projects, Webb has never been as successful as a performer as he has been a songwriter and arranger. Each album was noted for its inventive music and memorable lyrics.[5]

Webb's debut album as a performer, Words and Music, was released in late 1970 to critical acclaim. Rolling Stone writer Jon Landau called one of the album's cuts, "P.F. Sloan," a "masterpiece [that] could not be improved upon." The tune and the lyrics may have been allusions to the singer-songwriter P. F. Sloan, who had helped Webb early in Webb's career; a dispute between the two later led Webb to insist that he made up the title, implying that the title and the name of his former friend were mere coincidences.[citation needed] Webb's 1971 follow up album, And So: On, proved equally appealing to critics. Rolling Stone declared the album "another impressive step in the conspiracy to recover his identity from the housewives of America and rightfully install him at the forefront of contemporary composers/performers." His 1972 album Letters met with similar praise. Peter Reilly of Stereo Review wrote, "Jimmy Webb is the most important pop music figure to emerge since Bob Dylan."[5]

Throughout the 1970s, Webb lived in Encino, Los Angeles, California, fraternizing with Joni Mitchell and Harry Nilsson. He also struck up a lifelong friendship with actor Michael Douglas. Webb's song "Campo de Encino" chronicled his adventures and misadventures in his park-like hacienda. In 1974, Webb married Patsy Sullivan, a model-cover girl and youngest child of screen actor Barry Sullivan. The couple met posing for the cover of Teen when she was twelve years old. Patsy is featured with Webb on the cover of Webb's 1982 solo album Angel Heart. They have five sons and a daughter together. Four of their sons later formed a rock band, "The Webb Brothers". The couple split after 22 years.

Serious composer

Throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s, Webb's songs continued to be recorded by some of the industry's most successful artists. In 1977, the initial release of Art Garfunkel's Watermark album consisted exclusively of Webb's works, and in 1981, Garfunkel recorded "Scissors Cut", "In Cars", and "That's All I've Got to Say" on his album Scissors Cut. In 1980, Thelma Houston recorded "Before There Could Be Me", "Breakwater Cat", "Gone", "Long Lasting Love", and "What Was that Song" on her album Breakwater Cat. Leah Kunkel recorded "Never Gonna Lose My Dream of Love Again" and "Let's Begin" for her album I Run with Trouble. The latter was performed live in 1980 by the born-again Bob Dylan. Tanya Tucker recorded "Tennessee Woman" on her album Dreamlovers. Arlo Guthrie recorded "Oklahoma Nights" on his album Power of Love. In 1982, Linda Ronstadt recorded "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress" and "Easy for You to Say" on her album Get Closer. Joe Cocker recorded "Just Like Always" on his album Sheffield Steel. The Everly Brothers recorded "She Never Smiles Anymore" on the album Living Legends.

From 1982 to 1992, Webb turned his focus from solo performing to larger-scale projects, such as film scores, Broadway musicals, and classical music. In 1982, he produced the soundtrack for the film The Last Unicorn, an animated children's tale, with the musical group America performing Webb's songs. That same year, he composed the soundtrack to all episodes of the TV series Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

In 1985, Glen Campbell recorded Webb's "Cowboy Hall of Fame" and "Shattered" for the album It's Just a Matter of Time. And heavyweights Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson recorded "Highwayman" on the album Highwayman. In 1988, Toto recorded "Home of the Brave" on the album The Seventh One. Kenny Rankin recorded "She Moves, Eyes Follow" for the album Hiding in Myself. And in 1989, Linda Ronstadt recorded the album Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind, which featured four Jimmy Webb songs: "Still Within the Sound of My Voice" (with Webb playing piano), "Adios" (with orchestral arrangement by Webb), "I Keep It Hid" (with Webb playing piano), and "Shattered". In 1990, John Denver recorded "Postcard from Paris" on the album The Flower That Shattered the Stone. In 1991, Kenny Rogers recorded "They Just Don't Make Em Like You Anymore" on the album Back Home Again.

In 1986, Webb produced the cantata The Animals' Christmas, with Art Garfunkel, Amy Grant, and the London Symphony Orchestra, which tells the Christmas story from the perspective of animals.

In 1987, Webb produced the soundtrack for the film The Hanoi Hilton. That same year, he reunited with Campbell for the album Still Within the Sound of My Voice, for which he wrote the title song. They followed this up in 1988 with an album composed almost entirely of Jimmy Webb songs, Light Years. The album included the title song, as well as "Lightning in a Bottle", "If These Walls Could Speak" (which was recorded by Amy Grant that year) and "Our Movie". Two songs from 1982's Seven Brides for Seven Brothers also appear on the album. The record also included the songs "Other People's Lives", "Wasn't There A Moment", "I Don't Know How To Love You Anymore", and "Is There Love After You". Several of these songs later ended up on Webb solo albums.

In 1992, Webb completed a musical called Instant Intimacy, which he developed with the Tennessee Repertory Theatre. The musical contained new songs that he and others would later record, including "What Does a Woman See in a Man", "I Don't Know How to Love You Anymore", and "Is There Love After You". That same year, Webb performed live at the club Cinegrill, performing "What Does a Woman See in a Man" and introducing several additional new songs, including "Sandy Cove" and an old folk hymn, "I Will Arise".

In 1994, Webb teamed up with Nanci Griffith to contribute the song "If These Old Walls Could Speak" to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country produced by the Red Hot Organization.

Solo artist

Tunesmith: Inside the Art of Songwriting

Since 1993, Jimmy Webb produced four critically acclaimed solo albums: Suspending Disbelief (1993), Ten Easy Pieces (1996), Twilight of the Renegades (2005), and Just Across the River (2010). He has continued to expand his creative landscape to include musicals, commercial jingles, and film scores. More recently, he has written music for television, including the show E/R.

In 1998, Webb completed his first book, Tunesmith: Inside the Art of Songwriting, which was published by Hyperion Books. It was well received by songwriters and performers and became a best-seller.[9] One book reviewer described it as "a companion every serious songwriter should read, and read again, and keep handy for referral."[10]

In the 2000s, Webb has talked more openly about his return to the Christian faith of his upbringing and the role it has played in his music. In addition to his cantata, The Animals' Christmas, he has always included religious songs in his albums—"Psalm One-Five-O", "Jerusalem", and "I Will Arise" are a few examples—and his lyrics have included biblical verses and allusions. In an October 2007 interview with Nigel Bovey, editor of The Salvation Army newspaper The War Cry, Webb was quite explicit about his renewed faith.

I couldn't write a song without God. Sure, I could hack out hackneyed phrases and clichés, but to write anything meaningful I have to be in tune with God. He is the great source, my inspiration, the current that I have to connect to. Sadly I've not always used the gift He's given me—the answered prayer—as best as I could or should have. I've made mistakes. I've done things I wish I hadn't done.[11]

Webb has stated, "I am a strong believer in God... God is important to me. God is bigger than any one particular denomination. I don't like it when people try to confine Him. I don't put any limits on God." Webb reads the King James Version of the Bible.[11]

In 2004, Webb married Laura Savini, who appears nationally on PBS in pledge-drive programs. From 1996–2011, Savini was Vice President of Marketing and Communications at WLIW, a PBS station in New York City.[12] The couple first met backstage on New Year's Eve 1999 at Billy Joel's 2000 Years: The Millennium Concert at Madison Square Garden. They met again when Savini interviewed Webb for her local television show and the two soon started dating. They settled on the North Shore of Long Island.

In 2007, he released a live album of his show, Live and at Large (2007), which was recorded in the United Kingdom. The album includes personal stories and anecdotes about Richard Harris, Waylon Jennings, Harry Nilsson, Glen Campbell, Art Garfunkel, Frank Sinatra, and Rosemary Clooney.

In June 2010, Webb released Just Across the River, an album of newly-arranged Webb classics that features guest appearances by Vince Gill, Billy Joel, Willie Nelson, Lucinda Williams, Jackson Browne, Glenn Campbell, Michael McDonald, Mark Knopfler, J. D. Souther, and Linda Ronstadt.

In 2011, Webb was unanimously elected Chairman of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, replacing Hal David who retired after ten years in that position.[13]

Today Jimmy Webb is considered among the finest songwriters of his generation, and is frequently compared to legendary songsmiths George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Cole Porter, Barry Mann, and Burt Bacharach, whom Webb credits as one of his strongest musical influences. Webb continues to record and perform in the United States and abroad.

Honors and awards

Discography

Original albums
Albums of Jimmy Webb songs
Compilation albums
  • Tribute to Burt Bacharach and Jim Webb (1972)
  • Archive (1994)
  • The Moon's A Harsh Mistress: Jimmy Webb in the Seventies (2004) (a limited edition boxed set, including Live at the Royal Albert Hall from 1972)
  • Archive & Live (2005) (including Live at the Royal Albert Hall from 1972)
Songs

References

  1. ^ Eder, Bruce. Allmusic "Jimmy Webb". http://www.allmusic.com/artist/jimmy-webb-p21352/biography Allmusic. Retrieved October 11, 2011. 
  2. ^ KBápps.com "BMI Top 50 Songs". http://www.kbapps.com/lyrics50top.html KBápps.com. Retrieved October 12, 2011. 
  3. ^ The Songwriters Hall of Fame "Jimmy Webb". http://www.songwritershalloffame.org/index.php/exhibits/bio/C23 The Songwriters Hall of Fame. Retrieved October 12, 2011. 
  4. ^ a b Jimmy Webb Official Website "About Jimmy". http://jimmywebb.com/jimmy.html Jimmy Webb Official Website. Retrieved October 12, 2011. 
  5. ^ a b c d e Shane, Ken. "Words and Music: Jimmy Webb" in Thrive. Community Media, LLC, 2005.
  6. ^ a b c An Unofficial Jimmy Webb Homepage "Jimmy Webb Discography". http://web.archive.org/web/20091029035158/http://geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/7207/webb2.html An Unofficial Jimmy Webb Homepage. Retrieved October 12, 2011. 
  7. ^ a b c d e "Jimmy Webb Biography". musiciansguide.com. http://www.musicianguide.com/biographies/1608000761/Jimmy-Webb.html. Retrieved May 17, 2010. 
  8. ^ Torn, Luke (2004). Uncut "Interview: Jimmy Webb". Uncut. http://www.uncut.co.uk/music/jimmy_webb/interviews/416 Uncut. Retrieved November 22, 2009. 
  9. ^ Webb, Jimmy. Google Books "Tunesmith: Inside the Art of Songwriting". http://books.google.com/books/about/Tunesmith.html?id=eH4WOv8aTYQC Google Books. Retrieved October 29, 2011. 
  10. ^ Carlton, Jace. The Songwriter's Connection, July 2000 "Book Review". http://jacecarlton.com/Tunesmith.html The Songwriter's Connection, July 2000. Retrieved October 29, 2011. 
  11. ^ a b Bovey, Nigel. "I'm a bit like the Prodigal Son" on The Salvation Army. Retrieved on December 17, 2007.
  12. ^ Barmash, Jerry. Media Bistro "Longtime WLIW/Channel VP Laura Savini Stepping Down to Create Own Company". http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/longtime-wliwchannel-vp-laura-savini-stepping-down-to-create-own-company_b34298 Media Bistro. Retrieved October 29, 2011. 
  13. ^ Songwriters Hall of Fame "Chairman's Letter". http://www.songhall.org/member_letter Songwriters Hall of Fame. Retrieved October 29, 2011. 

External links

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 
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Sunshower (1969 Album by Thelma Houston)
Light Years (1988 Album by Glen Campbell)
His Greatest Performances (1979 Album by Richard Harris)

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