Jimmy Webb

[grooverider]

Hi Hank, Some other great Jimmy Webb works of art:
"The Supremes Produced and Arranged by Jimmy Webb", which is only available (as far as I know) as part of the (pricy) 3 cd box set, "This Is The Story".
"Tunesmith, the Songs of Jimmy Webb" available on Raven (an Australian import) with interpretations by Everything But The Girl, Arlo Guthrie, King Harvest, Dionne Warwick ("Didn't We"), Scott Walker, the Three Degrees (!), etc.
"El Mirage" (available on Collector's Choice), Jimmy Webb's collaboration with producer George Martin originally released in 1977 with guests like the late Lowell George (Little Feat), Dee Murray & Nigel Ollson (Elton John's Band).
"Rewind/Changes" by Johnny Rivers, with "Rewind", a little known album that was mostly arranged & conducted by Jimmy Webb (the great Marty Paich arranged 4 tracks) that contained seven Jimmy Webb compostitions including one of my favorites, "Rosecrans Boulevard" (absolutely beautiful!). "Rewind" was originally released in 1967 and is available on EMI's 2 for one cd's.

[Blair N. Cummings]

"Sunshower" is my favorite Webb-written-and-produced-for-someone-else album.
As I never tire of iterating on another forum, his coda for This Is Your Life is perhaps my favorite piece of Webb music.
As I`ve also mentioned before here, no one should avoid Webb`s own albums simply because his voice was (shall we say) a bit raw in the early `70s. Try "Twilight of the Renegades" from just a few years ago.
(And, by the way, Gentle On My Mind was written by John Hartford not Webb).

[grooverider]

HI Hank, In my previous post I forgot to mention my alltime favorite Jimmy Webb collaboration: "Stars" by Cher, sadly which is not available on cd yet. Cher's version of "Just This One Time" is IMHO her best singing and an absolutely stunning song. Also, Jackson Browne's "These Days" is just magnificent. Cher tackles songs by Jimmy Cliff, Eric Clapton, Janis Ian (the title song) with her version of Boudleaux Bryant's "Love Hurts", Cher is singing a Jimmy Webb arrangement that actually took my breath away! Cher did a later version of 'Love Hurts" but it just does not compare with this one!
I only wish their collaboration included more Jimmy Webb compostitions.
JImmy Webb produced, arranged & conducted the album and contributed keyboards, with many of the "LA Wrecking Crew" on board. It was released on Warner Brothers in 1975 and I know there have been requests to Warner Brothers to please release this on cd as it is truly a "missing piece of the puzzle" to the Jimmy Webb catalogue.

[hereiam]

I am a huge Webb fan too. (Hope Webb and Burt could collaborate to write a song)
Ever since I heard his biggest hit MacCarthur Park in 1968 (the longest single
apart from Beatles Hey Jude at that time), I was knocked off. Come to think of it,
he was not yet 20 year old when he wrote and arranged the song...
A true music genius.
His voice might be raw but there's an exception. Just listen to his own
version of Highwayman and you'll see what I mean. His singing was truly superb on it.

I like the long instrumental (the bridge of the song) in MacCarthur Park so much
that I even put in as the background music of a ferry ride video shot using my
cell phone.


It was a gloomy day but the ride showed quite a bit of the scenery of Hong Kong

[Sara D]

Webb has a new album out later this month called Just Across the River which features him duetting on most of his famous songs with all sorts of big names like Willie Nelson, Mark Knopfler, Billy Joel, Michael McDonald, Jackson Browne, Glen Campbell and Linda Ronstadt. The album also features a solo rendition of Do What You Gotta, one of Webb's greatest songs and the first time he's gotten round to recording it.

It's generally agreed on these pages that Bacharach was never quite the same composer after the Lost Horizon debacle in 1973 and I think the same thing applies to Webb after he radically changed his style for the start of his career as a singer-songwriter in 1970. After all forty years later it's still the same half dozen or so hits that he wrote towards the end of the 60s that he's best known for.

[BachtoBacharach]

Jimmy Webb was so awesome in the 60s and I agree with Sara that after then although he did some really great stuff, he remains known mostly for McArthur Park, Up, Up and Away, Galveston, Wichita Lineman and a few others...Bacharach is known most for his great body of 60s work with Dionne and others and a few gems in the 80s. I think this is the nature of the fame beast though in every profession. Everyone agrees too that Dionne's body of work in the 60s and early 70s remains her most praised and remembered...her late 70s and 80s work was good and she rode back to the top on it but the music was not nearly as creative as what she did with Bacharach and a few others in the 60s and 70s. In fact, her work for Arista during the 80s was distressingly uncreative at times although very popular. In fact, that was pretty much the whole popular music scene during the 80s...distressingly uncreative and homogenized.

[Hank]

Many thanks to all for continuing the post. I will be gratefully following up on your recommendations.
I saw Jimmy in Larchmont (NY) in April. Tiny venue....Thoroughly enjoyed the show.
Afterwards he signed my vinyl copy of the Supremes album.
"So you really like that album huh ?" said Jimmy
Somewhat starstruck, I babbled my praise.
"Thanks - we worked real hard on it"
What a thrill to meet such a genius !

[Pablo]

You're lucky, I'd love to see a Jimmy Webb concert.

Last summer I had the chance to meet Burt Bacharach after his concert in Madrid, he signed my copies of 'At this time' and 'Live at the Sidney Opera'. He was very nice and had a lot of patience signing records, shaking hands and posing for photos with the fans... great moment.

[richedcarl]

I agree with GrooveRider that the "Stars" album by CHER as produced and arranged by Jimmy Webb is one of his greatest efforts. Cher's vocals are fantastic and Webb's arrangements are stunning! She recorded the very best rendition of Jackson Brown's "These Days" on this album and Webb's arrangement is breathtaking. All of the tracks on this album of rock classics are great, thanks to Webb with superb vocals by Cher. Warner Brothers should definitely release this album as a CD.