Jimmy Webb Albums (11)
'Live and At Large'
Release Date 6/12/2007
Tracks 19
Label Jimmy Webb
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What The Critics Say
"If you think this is going to be a whole evening of anecdotes about dead people...you're basically right," Jimmy Webb tells his audience with a faint laugh in this live recording, which captures a show in Wales during Webb's 2005 tour of the United Kingdom. The legendary songwriter was touring in support of his 2005 album Twilight of the Renegades, which he describes here as a collection of songs "in memory of some great characters I've known in my life -- rogues, renegades, rapscallions, people who like to swim upstream." Fittingly, Live and at Large features Webb singing 11 numbers from his songbook, many of which will be familiar to longtime fans, and most are prefaced by stories about friends and artists in some way associated with the tunes. As one might imagine, Webb has some memorable tales to tell about his friendships with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Waylon Jennings, Rosemary Clooney and Harry Nilsson, while also sneaking in a few kind words about the still living Glen Campbell and Art Garfunkel. Webb's not a bad storyteller, but the real strength of this album comes when he sings; Webb's voice is in fine shape and he brings an intelligent and emotionally compelling sense of drama to songs like "Highwayman," "Wichita Lineman," and "Didn't We," lending a fresh perspective to songs most listeners probably know by heart. And while Webb is accompanied only by his own piano, his skills at the keyboard are estimable and he brings a wealth of tonal color to the songs, suggesting a real arrangement rather than a skeletal accompaniment. The disc closes out with "MacArthur Park," which is arguably the album's weakest moment -- at over ten minutes, this version adds three minutes to the rather overstuffed recording that was a hit for Richard Harris, and while Webb makes more sense of the lyric than the majority of interpretations, this cake has thoroughly melted by the time the tune finally comes to a close. Apart from the overwrought finale, Live and at Large is a fine audio snapshot of Jimmy Webb the performer, and it's no small compliment to say he's nearly at good as singing and playing his songs as he is at writing them. ~ Mark Deming, All Music Guide
'Twilight of the Renegades'
Release Date 1/1/2005
Tracks 12
Label Sanctuary
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What The Critics Say
Busy working with such recording artists as Michael Feinstein and Carly Simon when he isn't writing songs for motion pictures or composing so-far-unstaged Broadway musicals, Jimmy Webb hasn't bothered much with his solo performing career in the late '90s and early 2000s beyond making club appearances in major cities in the U.S., Great Britain, and Australia. Specifically, until Twilight of the Renegades, he had not issued a new album in nine years (Ten Easy Pieces, 1996) or an album of new material in 12 (Suspending Disbelief, 1993). Released in the U.K. in May 2005 and in the U.S. three months later on the day after the composer's 59th birthday, the album finds a performer who has long since given up on worrying about the trappings of rock he embraced on his records of the 1970s, but not on the ambitious songwriting and arranging that characterized his classic work of the 1960s. The 12 songs are mostly piano-based ballads, the extended melodies of which will sound familiar to anyone who's heard "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" or "The Highwayman" (in other words, everyone). The song structures tend to be extended, too, often eschewing the conventional verse-chorus patterns of pop. The lyrics are imaginative and touch on surprising subjects, starting with "Paul Gauguin in the South Seas," one of several songs about unusual characters in search of individual happiness, only some of whom succeed in finding it. In this sense, the most touching song must be "Class Clown," which follows a character from the schoolroom through life to the point when Webb concludes his story by repeating, "He's homeless." But there are also touching love songs, notably "Why Do I Have To...," the arrangement for which strongly recalls Burt Bacharach with its single muted trumpet. Webb has improved as a singer over the years, but his wheezy tenor still has a limited range and little projection. In his lower range, he sometimes recalls the upper range of Warren Zevon, though he lacks Zevon's bitten-off phrasing. The vocals remain the weak spot in the performing aspect of Webb's career, so that one continues to listen to him to hear a composer's individual interpretation of his work, rather than for definitive renditions of the songs. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
This soundtrack to the popular 1982 animated film based on the acclaimed children's book by Peter Beagle was scored by songwriter/composer Jimmy Webb ("Wichita Lineman," "MacArthur Park") and features performances from the soft rock duo America. The score itself, an appropriately somber and sentimental blend of fairy tale motifs and dark, Wagnerian cues, reflects the story's achingly beautiful tale of a unicorn who attempts to overthrow a maniacal king determined to rid the world of the magical creatures, while the songs are far more creative, daring, and eloquent than all of the cookie-cutter balladry that would eventually replace their type in future animated films. Like Watership Down, The Hobbit, and even Robert Altman's live action, Harry Nilsson-scored Popeye, this hard to find soundtrack is a gem from another age. ~ James Christopher Monger, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
The idea of releasing a collection of Jimmy Webb's best known songs sung by the author himself may seem like a no-brainer, but it's taken 20+ years for it to happen, apparently mostly because Webb needed to put some distance between himself and most of these numbers, in order to approach them in a fresh manner that makes this disc more than a mere exploitation effort. The result is the best and most accessible of all Webb's albums, featuring his 1990s' takes on "Galveston," "By The Time I Get to Phoenix," "Didn't We," "MacArthur Park," "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress," "Wichita Lineman," and "All I Know," amongst others. His voice is more expressive than ever, and the performances are generally grittier, with more raw emotion than the better known hit versions display. The arrangements are generally very simple and straightforward, with Webb's piano the primary instrument, and several of the songs are performed in a deeply personal manner, more akin to home recording for Webb's own pleasure than to a commercial release -- "Wichita Lineman," in particular, sounds here like the most personal and private of performances, filled with wrenching loneliness at which the Glen Campbell version only hints. The notes are very personal and revealing as well. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Making albums under his own name has been only an occasional activity for Jimmy Webb, at least since the first half of the 1970s, when he issued four LPs between 1970 and 1974. Since then, however, they've grown further and further apart: El Mirage appeared in 1977; Angel Heart in 1982; and then, 13 years after that, came Suspending Disbelief. Webb began his performing career at something of a disadvantage because of his extensive success as a songwriter in the late '60s; with all those royalties rolling in from "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" and "MacArthur Park," among others, he was anything but hungry, and his solo work was inconsistent as well as being inadequately promoted. Yet major labels periodically sign him up and give him a big recording budget, figuring that a guy who has struck gold before might do so again. In the meantime, he maintains a career as a songwriter and as an occasional composer for motion pictures. Suspending Disbelief appears to owe its existence to Linda Ronstadt, who used Webb on her 1989 album Cry Like a Rainstorm -- Howl Like the Wind and who here serves as co-producer for an album released by Elektra, her longtime record label. Webb has, as usual, written some new songs and also gone into his trunk. The concluding track, "I Will Arise," is a reimagined version of the old gospel song "I'll Fly Away" that bears a 1970 copyright; "Just Like Always," from 1980, first turned up on Joe Cocker's Sheffield Steel album; "Adios," dated 1981, was recorded by Ronstadt on Cry Like a Rainstorm -- Howl Like the Wind; and the leadoff track, "Too Young to Die," was introduced by David Crosby (who guests on backup vocals with Don Henley and J.D. Souther) on his album Thousand Roads in May 1993, four months before Suspending Disbelief. For once, however, the vintage material fits in well with the newer songs, and for once Webb puts across a consistent image as both a performer and writer. Suspending Disbelief doesn't, like other Webb albums, sound like a series of unrelated songs sung by an adequate vocalist but waiting for better singers to get at them. It sounds like a unified statement by an artist in his own right. At 46, that artist clearly has been around the block a few times, and he's no longer interested in waxing poetic about cakes left out in the rain or space travel; these songs are decidedly down to earth. If the reminiscences leading to the conclusion that he's "Too Young to Die" stake his claim to currency, he actually spends most of the album looking back maturely and somewhat sadly, when he isn't taking others to task for their bad behavior. Love gone wrong is a prominent subject, and the author of "Didn't We" nearly eclipses himself on the subject in "I Don't Know How to Love You Anymore," "It Won't Bring Her Back," "Postcard from Paris," and "Adios," songs full of regret, resignation, and acceptance. "Elvis and Me" sounds like a true story (the narrator insists it is) about an encounter with the King of Rock & Roll in Las Vegas, and it is the most direct of the songs about contemporary life that also include the caustic, catchy "Friends to Burn" and the witty, wordy "What Does a Woman See in a Man." Since his early, under-produced albums, Webb has tended toward the other extreme in his arrangements and productions, and Suspending Disbelief is another expensive Los Angeles studio effort peopled by such high-priced pros as Steve Lukather, Leland Sklar, and Russ Kunkel. But for once, restraint has been exercised; the music never overwhelms the songs. And Webb, whose voice has deepened and coarsened from the wheezy Oklahoma tenor he exhibited 20 years earlier, has gained in confidence and control as a singer, enabling him to put across his material better than he ever did before. He has written so many great songs that you can't say this is his best collection, but it is certainly his most straightforward, plainspoken writing yet, and he seems better able to perform his music now than at any time in the past. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
'Angel Heart'
Release Date 1/1/1992
Tracks 10
Label Columbia/Legacy/Lorimar
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What The Critics Say
Jimmy Webb, best known as a songwriter ("MacArthur Park," "By the Time I Get to Phoenix"), recorded three albums for Reprise Records between 1970 and 1972, and a fourth for Asylum in 1974, without commercial impact, before subsiding into the background work of writing, producing, and arranging for other artists. But he came back to the forefront in May 1977 with the release of El Mirage on Atlantic, his most polished effort yet as a performer. On the Reprise LPs, he had seemed intent on erasing his image as a middle-of-the-road hitmaker, taking a more personal approach to his writing, rocking harder, and singing in a sometimes rough voice. But by the age of 30, he seemed to have reconciled himself to being more of a pop artist, and El Mirage reflected that. The music was produced, arranged, and conducted by George Martin, famed for his work with the Beatles, the strongest outside figure Webb had ever allowed into his recording sessions, and those sessions also were peopled by the cream of Los Angeles musicians, along with such familiar guests as members of Elton John's backup band and, for vocal support, Kenny Loggins and Billy Davis of the 5th Dimension (which had scored hits with such Webb compositions as "Up-Up and Away"). These were lush tracks full of tasty playing and warm string charts on which Webb's thin tenor was buoyed by numerous background vocalists, the whole an excellent example of the style known as "West Coast pop." Webb brought several typically strong compositions, beginning with the time-spanning saga "The Highwayman" (later a number one country song for the quartet of Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, and Kris Kristofferson, who then took the group name the Highwaymen in its honor, and a Best Country Song Grammy winner) and including the autobiographical "If You See Me Getting Smaller I'm Leaving" (released simultaneously by Jennings), about life on the road as a struggling performer, and "Christiaan, No," a heartfelt message from a parent to a child that actually had been introduced on record the previous year by Glen Campbell. Also featured was the sad, lovely ballad "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress," already recorded by Campbell, Joe Cocker, and Judy Collins. The album's second side was somewhat weaker than the first, including an unnecessary remake of "P.F. Sloan," which had appeared on Webb's debut solo album in 1970; a nod to faithful backup guitarist Fred Tackett in a recording of his song "Dance to the Radio"; and a concluding instrumental, "Skylark (A Meditation)." But El Mirage was an album crafted to reshape Webb's image as a performer and relaunch his performing career. (As Richie Unterberger notes in his annotations to Collectors' Choice Music's 2006 reissue, Webb told New Musical Express that if the album didn't "make it," he might give up recording. It didn't, and another five years passed before the next Jimmy Webb solo album.) ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
While it is safe to say that very few people have heard Land's End, it is also a safe bet that some have heard a track or two. Most notable is "Crying In My Sleep," on which Art Garfunkel does such a fine job. Some folks might also remember "Alyce Blue Gown," but all in all, the rest of the music here hasn't found a wide fan base. Webb has quite a number of famous friends along to help him in his musical vision... ~ James Chrispell, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
The most surprising, diverse, and possibly the most satisfying of all of Jimmy Webb's early solo LPs, Letters presents the singer/songwriter in an unexpectedly wide-ranging series of musical settings, all of which complement his somewhat restricted vocal abilities. There are surprises throughout, beginning with the opening cut, "Galveston." Sung by Webb with only a pair of acoustic guitars for accompaniment, this version of the song would never challenge Glen Campbell's recording for time of AM radio, but it is delivered with a quiet fervor and intimacy, and a close embrace of every word, that Campbell's version, for all of its polish, never gets near. Much of the rest of the album, however, has Webb working within a more conventional pop/rock setting, beginning with "Campo de Encino," which comes complete with flute courtesy of Skip Mosher. Webb brushes up against the outer boundaries of his vocal range and expressiveness on several of these numbers, yet, surprisingly, moves nimbly through a rendition of the classic "Love Hurts," which also benefits from a fairly inventive, slightly dissonant, and airy orchestration. Much of the album is hooked around lost or unrequited love on some level, but the sounds are sufficiently varied to hold one's interest. "Simile"'s gently rippling solo piano accompaniment is followed by the soaring and highly emotional "Hurt Me Well," which shows Webb at the height of his emotional connection with a song, in the midst of an instrumental setting that's close to the ornate arrangements that he wrote for Richard Harris in the 1960s as he ever got on his own records. Lest one worry that the album is totally steeped in romantic angst, it isn't quite -- one trio of songs deals with different sides of being a songwriter, "Catharsis" casting Webb in a lyrical, gently reflective mood in approaching the dark aspects of fame and creativity; while the hard-rocking, fuzz tone-laden "Song Seller" (which previously appeared in another version on Words & Music) deals with the creative/business treadmill on which composers can find themselves trapped; and "Piano" is about the solitude that all creativity seems to entail, at some point. These might invite accusations of self-pity, but Webb never descends to that level in his performances, and the lyrics are complex enough to invite a close look and analysis of the words -- indeed, this is like a John Lennon album of the period. And "When Can Brown Begin" recaptures, in its tempo, texture, and accompaniment, the most poignant elements of Webb's collaborations with Richard Harris. Arguably the best of Webb's solo albums, Letters was reissued on CD in Japan in 1999, with full lyrics. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
After penning a series of middle-of-the-road pop hits in the late '60s and early '70s ("By the Time I Get to Phoenix," "Up-Up and Away," "MacArthur Park," etc.), 24-year-old Jimmy Webb launched his career as a recording artist in his own right with Words and Music in November 1970. (Jim Webb Sings Jim Webb, a collection of demos never intended as an album had preceded it, but Webb disavowed the release.) Reprise Records may have expected the album to sell on Webb's name, but it didn't, especially because, compared to his hits, it was under-produced (most of the instruments were played by the songwriter and Fred Tackett) and because Webb's writing had taken a more personal tone; for example, he devoted a three-song suite to the travails of being a songwriter. With the disc's commercial failure, Reprise was prepared to give him a second chance, and as soon as possible. So, in May 1971, only six months after Words and Music, And So: On was released. Webb hadn't had time to write an album's worth of new material. In fact, only four songs -- "Met Her on a Plane," "Laspitch," "One Lady," and "If Ships Were Made to Sail" -- carried 1971 copyrights, and songs dated back as far as 1967. (The earliest was "Marionette." In his liner notes to the 2006 reissue, Richie Unterberger speculates that Webb may have been "lightly mocking" "MacArthur Park" in "Marionette" since both songs have lines about things being left out in the rain. But since "Marionette" seems to have been written before "MacArthur Park" that appears unlikely.) "All My Love's Laughter" had been recorded by Ed Ames in 1968, and "Pocketful of Keys" by Thelma Houston in 1969. And some of the material was being repurposed. Reportedly, "Highpockets" and "Laspitch," both character songs, had been written for a proposed Broadway musical. As a result, And So: On was an album of different moods that didn't quite hang together. Ironically, the age of some of the material made it sound more like Webb's hit period than Words and Music had. One could easily imagine Richard Harris recording "All My Love's Laughter" or "Pocketful of Keys" in the wake of "MacArthur Park," for example, but "One Lady" and "See You Then" (copyright 1970) sounded like the personal, confessional statements more typical of Words and Music. Another problem was that, although Webb had an adequate singing voice, in fact a voice superior to that of some singer/songwriters of the time, especially on the earlier songs he was not writing for that voice's limitations, which made him sound like a worse singer than he was as he strained for notes he couldn't reach. The album thus often came off more like a songwriter's demos than the finished work of a professional performer. (Not surprisingly, it was later mined by others. Roberta Flack quickly covered "See You Then," the first of several recordings; Ian Matthews did "Met Her on a Plane" in 1972; Scott Walker tried "If Ships Were Made to Sail" in 1973; and Art Garfunkel put "Marionette" on his almost-all-Webb album Watermark in 1978.) ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
