Let's talk about JIMMY WEBB

that glen campbell youtube of him doing wichita lineman in '07 (?) is great. nice guitar solo by glen. although, i hate to say this but... did glen have a stroke? his voice has that oddly clenched quality you sometimes hear in the speech of people who have suffered from strokes.

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

I am 40-year-old mother of 4 and I was raised on this beautiful music...memories of how it used to be. Such a good simple time..no cell phones, no ipods, no remote controls, no cable...only HeeHaw on Saturday evenings and my dad cooking dinner. Wish my kids could go back in time and experience this wonderful time.

ah yes, the "simple" times of the mid-1970s....

S. Macarthur Park by Donna summer, Tony Christie, Four tops, Vic damone, Waylon Jennings, Grimethorpe colliery band. Wicheta Lineman, By the time I get to Phoenix, Galveston, Up, up and away. Both fifth dimension albums (esp paper cup, carpet man but most of the others too) , If you see me getting smaller I'm leaving, both Richard Harris albums (the yard went on forever and the aforementioned Macarthur park), loads of other great Glen Campbell stuff (check out the two early 70's albums for some hidden gems) Quite a few of his solo albums right up until the mid/late 70's have songs of real merit. Loads of other great stuff...Sinatra did some great versions of his songs, as did fellow genius Neil Sedaka. Glen Gregory does a pretty good version of Wichita lineman, as do, bizarely, the Kings singers, also, David Snell from his album, Harp transplant and Johnny Harris from his album, Movements although both are very hard to find. John Denvers version of By the time I get to Phoenix is better than you'd think, Isaak Hayes version is barely recognisable but superb and Kurt Edelhagen's version is odd but haunting and actually changes the song radically while still keeping its essence.
D. Very little really...some of the 80's stuff is a bit iffie and the general rule of thumb is to avoid anything by artists you already hate. The Mantovani version of Macarthur park is grim, as is the Nina version of Phoenix from her golden hour album.

I've got over 300 different versions of Jimmy Webb tracks on all formats so I guess you could call me a fan!

He's a genius...simple as that. If pop is slowly eating itself, Jimmy Webb (or the best part of him) remains at the back of the freezer, yet to be discovered and devoured...

― Kris England, Thursday, 5 May 2005 19:35 (4 years ago) Permalink

This was me years ago and I still love Jimmy Webb.

12 Easy Pieces is great and the Jools Holland live performances which are on Youtube are well worth a watch. So fragile, it seems the songs are going to collapse completely at any time but they never do.

Xpost. I meant 10 easy pieces.

"If These Walls Could Speak" as done by Amy Grant on her Lead Me On album is one of my favorite songs ever.

I am the hugest JW fan but let's just all be honest with ourselves and admit that MacArthur Park is a pile of shit and this is what people think of when they think of Jimmy Webb which is really sad. Did Richard Harris record anything worth listening to?

This might be a good time to remind people that all of the 5th Dimensions albums are available on mp3 whereas in the CD era they were hard to find!! Now there is no excuse for not having albums like "The Magic Garden"!

MacArthur Park still sucks. Stop pretending you like it.

I'd recommend his book Tunesmith: Inside the Art of Songwriting.

http://tnjr60204230231.widec.jpg

let's talk about this jimmy instead!

damn. little jimmy dickens but my picture didn't show up

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.

xpost I guess so? I wasn’t aware he had a famous dad at the time but put it together later

Def changes that Gaughin tribute on that 10's album of his for me.