Jimmy Webb/Rumer's New Duet

[blueonblue]

Martin,
Thanks for that beautiful song !
I also like "If You Should Leave My Life" another song Richard recorded with Webb.
You also mentioned The 5th Dimension.
Speaking of which......



"blue"

[grooverider]

From her album, "Stars", produced, arranged & conducted by Jimmy Webb, with the only song on the album written by Jimmy Webb (all the others were versions of songs by Jackson Browne, Eric Clapton, Neil Young, etc.), here is Cher, "Just This One Time":



(too bad the album is, at this writing, only available on vinyl)

[Blair N. Cummings]

Just to wrap up this thread appropriately, I`d like to emphasise my love and respect for the work of Jimmy Webb. I`ve posted some strong negative statements about his new album. I`ve done the same regarding some of Burt`s recent work. I stand by them all.
I don`t equate being a fan with worship. In fact, I hold my "gods" to a pretty high standard.
Anyway, I saw JW at his last performance at the late, lamented Bottom Line just a month over a decade ago. He pulled out everything from "Little Tin Soldier" to "Marionette" to "Someone Is Standing Outside" to... name a non-hit favorite - he played it!
Never once since then has JW felt comfortable enough to perform a similar set anywhere. Indeed, only once since then has he released an album consisting of anything but re-makes of his old sixties hits.
Here:
is an example of his outstanding presentation of the past,
We are all still awaiting a presentation of...well, the present.
Come on, JW, stop bullshitting us!

[Martin Johnson]

Yes, Blair, I stopped going to Webb concerts years ago because of how few songs there were and how little the set-list changed from year to year. A show featuring "Little Tin Soldier" to "Marionette" to "Someone Is Standing Outside", all 60s songs, of course, would have been a real novelty and a breath of fresh air.

I suppose the thinking behind this album and the one before it is that the general public has a lot of catching up to do as regards to Webb's career and the best thing to do was make a couple of albums of some of Webb's best songs, record them in such a way that they're very accessible and involve some celebrity friends known for their association with Webb or who are at least sympathetic towards his music. Judging by how few genuine new songs there were on Webb’s 2005 album ‘Twilight of the Renegades’ (more than half of the songs were copyrighted in the 80s and 90s and had already been recorded by others) suggests that the well had already begun to run dry and I personally would prefer a new album like ‘Still Within the Sound Of My Voice’ which at least contains six great songs not previously recorded by Webb and one good new one than a whole album of new but mostly mediocre material.

[pljms]

Martin, I agree with you 100%.

[Blair N. Cummings]

Maybe my problem is that I`m old enough to have heard (and been made sick of) JW`s "greatest hits" nearly a half-century ago. As beautiful as some of them are, I never want to hear any of them again.
I know that Twilight... was a collection of demos and out-takes but since I`m not a member of the JW "inner circle" they were new to me. I`ll accept that.
Besides, the well hasn`t run dry. The man has scored at least half a dozen unproduced musical s over the past quarter century. Given, some of the songs are surely "situational", but many are not. Why can`t he record (or issue some demos) of those?
Sorry, I just don`t buy the idea that endless (not just two) releases of old stuff is the only viable option for a writer of JW`s stature. Sony gave Burt carte-blanche to make At This Time. (I thought it sucked, but that`s not the point).
An indie gave...GAVE...Todd Rundgren money to make his latest album.
I have to believe that if JW made it known that he had an album`s worth of new (or previously unheard) songs, he could choose from a slew of serious offers.

[pljms]

A major factor in why I also stopped going to Jimmy Webb gigs, apart from the rigidity of the set-list and the Cabaret approach to performing with nearly as much chat as music, were the liberties perfoming alone at the piano allowed him to take melodically and especially harmonically with his most beautiful songs, a tendency he's largely reined in playing with these tip-top Nashville musicians on the last two albums. As my wife remarked after one of his gigs, it's almost like he's now embarrassed by the more romantic songs in his catalogue that he feels the need to make the melody more angular (listen to the way he still sings the first line of the chorus of 'MacArthur Park' on the new album) and to throw in the odd dissonant chord or two.

Yes, Blair, I'd welcome a new album of wholly original material from Jimmy Webb if I thought it was going to be any good, but after the disappointing 'Twilight of the Renegades' and at the age of 67 I wonder if he still has it in him. My guess is that he's possibly harbouring the same doubts if these last two 'hits' albums are anything to go by.

[Blair N. Cummings]

I`m a bit surprised that the Twilight album is regarded by apparently more than a few as a mediocrity. Despite its bastard parentage, I thought it far superior to Suspending Disbelief which seemed to me to lie down for a nap after the first three or four tracks, never to stir again. Granted, all of this is a matter of personal taste.
But why is JW suspected of having gone over a creative cliff at age sixty-seven when Burt is, what...eighty-eight or thereabouts?
I`d still like to hear his unreleased songs for all of those musicals no one was interested in producing...presumably so that we could all revel in the splendor of Tarzan and Spider Man.

[Blair N. Cummings]

I`m impressed by the number of hits this topic (which -note - I did not originate) has received.
Maybe if everyone who clicked here went to jimmywebb.com and expressed their interest in a "real" new album (especially given the fact that the actual new album has tanked commercially) we might stir the lazy bastard into giving us one.

[blueonblue]

That''s very funny Blair ! LOL
C'mon folks, let's give Jimmy a "poke" !

"blue"

[pljms]

For reasons unexplained, we in the UK have to wait until October 28th until we don't buy 'Still Within the Sound of My Voice' in our droves, as we didn't the previous 10 Jimmy Webb studio albums. I remember once reading Webb's post 60s career cruelly described as, "the longest anti-climax in American popular music history". Of course he's written many good songs over the past 40+ years, but how many of these are known (and loved) by the general public? This might be a factor as to why his Muse may have deserted him and why he's now recording albums full of old material. Still, I'll buy it (like all the others) and will enjoy it, of that I've no doubt.

[Blair N. Cummings]

The "general public" no longer hears or loves JW`s music because popular tastes (I. e. "young people with disposable income") have changed over the past half-century as you`ve probably noticed. The media (top ten radio and television "variety shows") are also rather different or non-existent now. Who, today, will commission an album of Webb songs the way Glen Campbell, 5th Dimension, and a young Thelma Houston did?
Don`t disparage the man`s creative accomplishments simply because they`re no longer widely heard. Are you familiar with his own albums prior to the exasperating run of re-re-retreads? There`s great stuff on all of them.

[An Enormous BB Fan]

It doesn't get any greater than Burt/Hal/Dionne. Considering the (non-existent) record business today, and considering the music now being played on the radio, I do wonder how Burt/Hal/Dionne would do if they were starting out and writing the exact same songs? Discuss.

[Martin Johnson]

Sadly, I think the public’s apparent indifference to Jimmy Webb’s material began in the early 70, well before the changes in radio formatting and record company policies did so much to lower standards. As pljms wrote, Webb has written many excellent songs over the last four decades, but they just haven’t caught on in the same way as his beloved songs of the 60s and remain little known to the public at large if known at all, even when they’ve been included on successful, high profile albums by the likes of Art Garfunkel and Linda Ronstadt. I got an inkling as to why that might be the case about ten years ago when I compiled a CD of what I considered to be Webb’s best songs since the 60s for several friends who were unfamiliar with his work since then and the response to the disc was virtually the same from all of them, that they thought the songs were good and often beautifully constructed but that they weren’t particularly memorable and somehow lacked the ‘magic’ of his earlier work. Of course, the same thing has been said about Bacharach’s work since the 60s, but at least he’s had the satisfaction of having written a few really big hit songs in the 80s that remain popular to this day. What would Jimmy Webb have given to have written just one really big hit song in the last forty years? As Irving Berlin once remarked, “Show me a songwriter who says he’s not interested in writing hit songs and doesn’t care if his songs are only heard by a few and I’ll show you a liar!”

[blueonblue]

Sadly, I think the public’s apparent indifference to Jimmy Webb’s material began in the early 70, well before the changes in radio formatting and record company policies did so much to lower standards. As pljms wrote, Webb has written many excellent songs over the last four decades, but they just haven’t caught on in the same way as his beloved songs of the 60s and remain little known to the public at large if known at all, even when they’ve been included on successful, high profile albums by the likes of Art Garfunkel and Linda Ronstadt. I got an inkling as to why that might be the case about ten years ago when I compiled a CD of what I considered to be Webb’s best songs since the 60s for several friends who were unfamiliar with his work since then and the response to the disc was virtually the same from all of them, that they thought the songs were good and often beautifully constructed but that they weren’t particularly memorable and somehow lacked the ‘magic’ of his earlier work. Of course, the same thing has been said about Bacharach’s work since the 60s, but at least he’s had the satisfaction of having written a few really big hit songs in the 80s that remain popular to this day. What would Jimmy Webb have given to have written just one really big hit song in the last forty years? As Irving Berlin once remarked, “Show me a songwriter who says he’s not interested in writing hit songs and doesn’t care if his songs are only heard by a few and I’ll show you a liar!”

Martin,
I fully agree with you !
And Irving Berlin was absolutely right !

"blue"