Let's talk about JIMMY WEBB

sort of agree re. macarthur park.

"sort of"?? I listened to that thing over and over again and I am convinced it has no redeeming value. It is truly awful. I don't even think you can convince me that parts of it have merit. Especially the Richard Harris record, it is one record I am sorry I have. It doesn't even have comedic value. I wonder if anyone can defend it.

re: Harris, and worthiness - "The Hive" is awesome.

Whatever happened to Zumpano?

is jody beth rosen still around? i bet she would defend it.

xp

the association was offered macarthur park before any other act, but they turned it down. too bad, probably could have come up with something a lot more exciting than r. harris

Is there a Jimmy Webb boxset? There should be.

Rhino Handmade had one in a limied edition (as they do), but I just went to their web site (ha ha) and it looks as if it's long gone....

yup, i managed to download that sucker, though.

what do people think of his solo records anyway?

i must say his voice is an acquired taste i haven't fully acquired.

!!

Hang in there, and (if you're like me) you'll start to appreciate the records for the flawed gems that they are. His limited vocal range actually becomes one of his greater assets.

the comments (all 300+ of them!) on that youtube are funny. though, i must say, nostalgia is a fucking disease.

Youtube comment boxes in general are absolutely filled with the worst excesses of nostalgia. People could be talking about Shed fucking Seven and still it will be all, "Music just isn't the same anymore...This was back when moral certainties still existed etc etc..."

hey, his first proper solo LP (words and music) is kind of super-awesome. his voice really needs to grow on you, and i still recognize that it's not a great instrument. but man do those songs stick the fuck in your head.

from the amy grant thread:

she has a gorgeous reading of jim webb's "if these walls could speak."

that song is indestructible. i can imagine a version erring on the side of the gloppy, but even glen campbell's late-'80s version is pretty solid. why hasn't more been written about this phenomenal song? why haven't more covered it?

When I think of how "music isn't the same as it used to be" I don't think of Jimmy "Weirdo" Webb.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2eKB_fZryY

skip first 2:00, boring schmaltzy intro

weird that she twists this song into some stuff about J.C. i think jim webb is actually an athiest. go figure.

seriously that's a fucking beautiful song

can i get a witness?

I tell ya, Roberta Flack's version of Do What You Gotta Do is solid gold genius.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/arts/music/18webb.html?ref=arts

Talking about his new album and his life

i don't know how many folks on ilm know me anymore, but if you do, you know that i won't steer you wrong when it comes to musical recommendations. and HOLY SHIT that webb 1970s solo stuff is amazing. just amazing. seriously. in sort-of ranked order:

1. words and music
2. land's end
3. letters
4. and so: on
5. el mirage

but seriously they are all masterpieces.

hell, i've even learned to like 'suspending disbelief.' but what you really want are the ones listed above. holy shit.

JW is coming to Cambridge next month - any idea whether he's worth catching live these days?

Amateurist, tell me what you think of the solo records. I LOVE Webb and think Ten Easy Pieces is brilliant -- but his voice was very different in the 70s, and I actually found myself struggling a bit with the Archive compilation. "Piano" was the only song on it that gave me an "aha!" moment -- the rest was...hard to digest.

Tell me more...

I just picked up And So: On last week. It's the first of his solo records I've heard. It's incredible. So many great songs, plus some very nice backing vocals from his sister Susan Webb, and some pretty brilliant arrangements (the instrumental section at the end of "Laspitch" stopped me dead in my tracks the first time I heard it). Looking forward to delving further into the solo catalog!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NatwX3N5f6Q

God this arrangement just kills me every time. Glen Campbell's overproduced version never sat right with me, but this solo Webb version from Five Easy Pieces stirs at my soul. the whole album does really.

Both versions of Galveston are beautiful to me -- but Jimmy's accompaniment on his own version is almost like some Schubert lied.

NY Times review of him live(I'm not a big fan of Stephen Holden reviews but this isn't bad). In my neck of the woods he's going to be doing a show with Raul Malo

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/05/arts/music/jimmy-webb-at-feinsteins-at-loews-regency-review.html?ref=music

Jimmy Webb may have been performing his greatest hits for decades, but you could never call his show at Feinstein’s at Loews Regency on Wednesday evening an example of phoning it in. A more accurate description of his treatment of “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” “Wichita Lineman,” “MacArthur Park” and “All I Know” would be impassioned deconstruction. There were many moments when Mr. Webb, who turns 65 on Aug. 15, suggested the singer-songwriter equivalent of a famished wolf howling in the wilderness. Instead of embracing the niceties of a polished pop crooner, he eviscerated his own songs, laying out their raw emotions — mostly a young man’s desperate romanticism — with such intensity that I wondered how anyone could feel so much.

His pianism floridly illustrated the songs. “But she’ll just hear that phone keep on ringing,” was embellished with telephonic piano frills. The unwavering devotion to his sweetheart (or is it to God?) of the protagonist of “Wichita Lineman” was asserted in his insistent repetition of the words, “the Wichita lineman is still on the line” strung out for what seemed like minutes as he tapped out a signal that he joked was Morse code for “Send me beer.”

“MacArthur Park” got the full operatic treatment, in which the psychedelic imagery of “the cake out in the rain” that nowadays singers often omit, was restored. You were in the heart of the storm, watching all that “sweet green icing flowing down.”

Interspersing the songs were Mr. Webb’s hilariously salty yarns about his experiences as a pop Wunderkind in his late teens and early 20s, hanging out with Frank Sinatra, Richard Harris and Glen Campbell. A riveting storyteller in the cowboy campfire tradition, he is someone you could listen to for hours.

Mr. Webb confessed that he is still stung by the perception of him in the 1960s as being on the wrong side of the cultural divide when the lyrics of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen were obsessively parsed for deeper meanings while his were not.

Listen to his song, “Highwayman,” an ’80s pop-country hit for the super-quartet of Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash. This first-person monologue of a soul incarnated as a highwayman, sailor, construction worker, ship captain and ultimately “a single drop of rain” is as deep as it gets.

Mr. Webb confessed that he is still stung by the perception of him in the 1960s as being on the wrong side of the cultural divide when the lyrics of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen were obsessively parsed for deeper meanings while his were not.

jimmy webb is brilliant but this sentence encapsulates why his stage banter is kind of insufferable. the way he intellectualizes his own music is just so... prosaic.

Sounds like he's better off just telling old stories between songs:

Interspersing the songs were Mr. Webb’s hilariously salty yarns about his experiences as a pop Wunderkind in his late teens and early 20s, hanging out with Frank Sinatra, Richard Harris and Glen Campbell. A riveting storyteller in the cowboy campfire tradition, he is someone you could listen to for hours.

although as the downloader of many jimmy webb live boots, i have to say that he repeats the same stories nearly verbatim (jokes included) at every concert. which is not a crime, but kind of takes the luster off a bit.

sleepin in the daytime

otm

yeah those jimmy webb solo albums are probably the best thing anybody released in the 1970s. hit after fucking hit. on "and so: on" alone there's ... met her on a place, all my love's laughter, marionette, one lady, if ships were made to sail, pocketful of keys, see you then. i mean goddam.

i like this lyric:

You must admit
We really had a nice time
There was moment after moment
Before love died
And if I never kiss your lips again
On this side
I'll see you then

also dude knows how to write a string arrangement.

actually i think it's "Really had a nice ride"

half of this dude's songs are break-up songs. actually probably like 75% of the songs from this era.

Yeah, I remain mostly just familiar with the 60s stuff. I'll certainly second you with regards to Amy Grant's "If these Walls Could Speak" though.

jesus chris Words And Music is pretty amazing right? insane and beautiful and amazing in equal measures

jimmy webb is performing IN macarthur park tonight! free concert.

Better bring an umbrella

LOL

the world is still sleeping on his 1970s solo records for some reason

up there with the very best IMO

Truth

I like Ten Easy Pieces from the 1990s better than any of his 70s records. It's not that they don't have their moments – "Piano" for instance is deadly. But a number of these records feature him trying on various vocal affectations (see "PF Sloan" from Words & Music or "If Ships Were Made to Sail" from And So: On) or laying on overwrought orchestral arrangements (the case on most of El Mirage). I don't think Webb began recording definitive versions of many of his own songs until his voice got a bit richer with age, he began to simplify his arrangements and he probably became a little more comfortable in his own skin.

i don't find them overwrought, or rather, i appreciate their overwroughtness.

and even among those records there are some stunning--not overwrought at all--arrangements, e.g. his own version of "when does brown begin," which wraps a faintly embarrassing lyric around one of the most extraordinarily beautiful pop-song melodies and arrangements i've ever heard.

See, I actually prefer the version of "When Can Brown Begin" he produced for the Supremes to the one on Letters.

Or "Christiaan No," a good song but where Glen Campbell's take is sublime, Webb's own is treacly somehow.

There's just something about these 70s records that should be amazing and...aren't.

This is my favorite version of "PF Sloan," BTW:

http://youtu.be/Y8cBEZG0S7Q

oh, the supremes one is at least as good, sure.

we'll have to agree to disagree about some other things.

Interviewed on Gilbert Gottfried's latest podcast. Halfway through it now and there's been some choice gossip about Nilsson and Lennon. And a bit of Jimmy & Gilbert duetting on "MacArthur Park."

s: Linda Ronstadt's version of "Do What You Gotta Do". Her vocals in that song are absolutely amazing. Additionally, she performed it in the way Jimmy Webb intended, and not like Nina Simone's inadequately upbeat version.

d: Brooklyn Bridge's 1968 version of "Worst That Could Happen". I never really liked the song's lyrics; it felt like Jimmy's lowest point in songwriting to me. Then when Brooklyn Bridge recorded it I couldn't believe how much attention it got. The backing vocals are awful and the band sound like a group of beginners. The only good part of the song is Johnny Maestro's voice.