Music: Jimmy Webb

Heath Ledger Theatre
July 1, 2017

The last time the American songwriter Jimmy Webb played Perth, a paltry 100 or so people were sprinkled around the little Fly By Night Club in Fremantle.
Six years later, the swanky, and much larger, Heath Ledger Theatre was full to over-capacity.
This was partly due to much better promotion of this visit, but something else, I suspect, was afoot – call it nostalgia if you like, but that doesn’t adequately explain the resurgence in the careers of the septuagenarian Webb and his veteran peers.
Webb, though, is a unique case; he’s never had a hit single of his own, his own albums sell modestly, and yet he’s been a major star since the 1960s on the strength of his songwriting alone.

Music: A chat with Jimmy Webb

An Evening With Jimmy Webb is at the Heath Ledger Theatre on Saturday July 1.  We had a great chat on the phone from his place on Long Island as he prepared for the tour.

The legendary American songwriter Jimmy Webb is disarmingly frank about the secret of his current show’s appeal: “It’s a name-dropping fest!”

Webb won his first Grammy 50 years ago, for Up, Up and Away, and has since collected countless platinum and gold records.

By the 1970s, those hits – By the Time I Get to Phoenix, Wichita Lineman, All I Know, the gigantic MacArthur Park, Didn’t We? (one of four of his songs  Frank Sinatra recorded), The Highwayman – and the status of his “clients”, music royalty like Linda Ronstadt, Art Garfunkel, Joe Cocker, Richard Harris and, of course, Glen Campbell – made Webb, unique among his contemporaries, a major star for his songs alone.

Taking up the mantle of interpreting his own songs has been a matter of necessity as much as choice for Webb: sadly, he’s running out of his voices.

“They were the finest artists,” he said.

“They had the most beautiful voices in the world.

“It’s very painful to think about, as one by one these voices are stilled.

“It leaves me to sing.

“I may not be the best – I couldn’t tie Glenn’s shoes as a singer, but I learnt a lot from him, a little bit has rubbed off from everybody I worked with.

“So I go out with my limited resources.

“But can I pull off a convincing Wichita Lineman, or hit the high note at the end of MacArthur Park?

“Well, yes, I can!”

“That’s the best part of life for me, performing – not only taking the fans back to special times in their lives, but getting to go out after the show, meet everyone I possibly can, sign memorabilia, do photos.

“I don’t draw the line between me and the fans, which sometimes drives security, and my wife, a little bit crazy.

“But I absolutely love it.

Read the full interview in The West Australian 

And let's sing another Jimmy Webb song, boys…

Music: Jimmy Webb

Fly by Night Musician’s Club

June 28, 2011

An evening with Jimmy Webb is a gift of the company of some of the greatest songs of the past half-century. It’s particularly poignant this week, with the sad news that Webb’s best known and favourite interpreter Glenn Campbell was rapidly losing his battle with Alzheimer’s Disease, and that his current tour would be his farewell.

Webb and Campbell played together for the last time only a fortnight ago, and it’s hard to think of one of them without the other.

After a sprightly opener by local performer and songwriter Nat Ripepi, Webb took us through a set that, while it contained only ten songs, covered the important points of his long career.

Music: All American Heroes

Jimmy Webb 

The Fly by Night Club

June 28

Kinky Friedman and Van Dyke Parks 

Artbar

June 30

What an incredible privilege to have three of the very greatest contemporary American songwriters performing in Perth within the space of two days, and in such great, intimate venues. It's my first chance to see any of them perform (although I did get to be Kinky's chaperone one memorable night when he was here for the Writer's Festival some years back). 

The connections they bring with them, whether it's through immortal songs like Heroes and Villains, Good Vibrations, Galveston, The Moon's a Harsh Mistress, Sold American and The Ballad of Charles Whitman, or their work with some of the very best American artists of this or any era, run very deep for me and many others.

I'll say no more, other than to sincerely urge you to get to the Fly or Artbar to enjoy them. 

There are links to booking sites in the June listings to the right. In the meantime, have a look at Michael O'Dwyer's chat with Kinky and Van Dyke in the West link here , and let me get you started on some preparatory You Tube browsing: