Jimmy Webb/Rumer's New Duet

[Blair N. Cummings]

Martin, was this on the disc you made? If so, I would like to know what makes it unmemorable or lacking in his former "magic."

Enormous, I think the Bacharach/David/Warwick "canon" if begun again now would find a cult audience and little more. The following is only anecdotal evidence but, I think, telling:
I have sent innumerable examples of Burt`s work to a musically sophisticated friend a generation younger than myself. He always replies in the same way. He has enormous respect for what was done (particularly harmonically) but cannot imagine sitting down and listening to it for pleasure.
This past weekend, I sent a young black woman I know the YouTube clips for "Check Out Time", "Who Is Gonna Love Me", and "Odds and Ends." I told her I would be very interested in her response. In not one of her subsequent e-mails did she mention them.
This style of pop is not relevant to the current generation perhaps because it accompanied no significant time in their lives, perhaps because melody itself has been irrelevant to pop for over forty years.Consider that since the mid-`70s pop has been disco, rap, and metal (and their various offspring). Just heavy 4/4 and, essentially vocal chant.
Look what happened (or, rather, didn`t happen) when Nikki Jean (No, I still don`t know her) released her album a couple years ago.

[Martin Johnson]

Blue, yes, Irving Berlin had a way with words, didn't he? And Music!

No Blair, 'That's All I've got to Say' wasn't on the CD I made as I've never owned that particular soundtrack. I was disappointed by my friends' reaction to the disc because I personally love the songs, but I can't say I was surprised and I certainly didn't remonstrate with them! Perhaps surprisingly the song on the CD I remember impressing them the most, enough to move a couple of them to tears (both women of a certain age!), was 'Time Flies' by Rosemary Clooney. Yes, it used to affect my late mother that way too, that an Linda Ronstadt's 'Adios'. As for BB's appeal to the young of today, I'm always gratified by how many people of youthful appearance I see at his own concerts and at the many tribute shows to his music I've been to over the last few years. I also think that given the right artists the greatest of his songs as new would be hits time and time again, but then I'm an eternal optimist!

[Martin Johnson]

I meant to put Rosemary Clooney's recording of Jimmy Webb's 'Time Flies' on here last week but got distracted by life and stuff. Now I go on to Youtube and find it's not there anyway. However, a televised concert version featuring Rosemary Clooney in duet with Linda Ronstadt will suffice, although it has to be said both singers appear to be reading the lyrics. Why haven't more established singers covered this beautiful and poignant song?

[Blair N. Cummings]

It would be a significant understatement to say that I`m not much of a Michael Feinstein fan, but here`s his version with JW on piano:
Webb`s own version appears on his under-rated Twilight of the Renegades album.
BTW - and take note, Joe - this is from yet another unproduced musical score: Dandelion Wine (based on the Ray Bradbury story).

[blueonblue]

OMG.... what a beautiful song !

"blue"

[pljms]

Yes, it is, Blue, and it's a crime that it's so little known. The Clooney recording of 'Time Flies' is on her 'Demi-Centennial' album from the mid-90s, when I first heard the song sung by Webb himself at the piano during an interview on a local London radio station, the now defunct GLR. I remember he mentioned that Clooney had just recorded it and how proud he was that she was the first to cut it. Another terrific 'Time' song of Webb's from those days is 'Time Enough For Love', which I remember seeing him perform live at the Cafe Royal in '94 . To my knowledge the only recording of it so far is by Michael Feinstein and I think it's superior to anything on his all-Webb album from 2003, 'Only One Life'. Sadly, it's not on YouTube.

[Bruce Bernard Williams]

Congratulations to Jimmy on his induction into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame this past Tuesday night here in Tulsa. The ceremony was held at the Mabee Center to a SRO audience. This past Sunday he performed two (2) concerts at the Blue Door in OKC to rave reviews. I read the review which appeared in a local newspaper and he discussed his association with Glen Campbell, his life in his home state of Oklahoma, and his musical collabarations throughout the years.

[Blair N. Cummings]

Maybe the lazy bastard is finally stirring, after all. I can`t trace the reference alluded to here, but this is from a knowledgeable fan from JW`s message board: Read somewhere that Jimmy said he'd spent so many years with his old song catalog that he had deprived himself of writing lots of other things. Imagine that...

Maybe he will finally get cracking on an album of new/unheard songs instead of waiting so long as to lose any possible residual commercial momentum from press on the duet albums. Reckon?