Webb Untangled

Rip It Up, Issue 16, 1 October 1978, Page 18

Webb Untangled

BY W. DART

In a world of punk rock, new wave and disco, the very name of Jimmy Webb almost seems an anachronism. Perhaps because his early successes such as "Galveston" and "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" have become the tramping ground of the Val Doonlcans of this world. And yet one of the most sympathetic assessments of Webb as a songwriter was written by Karl Jenkins of Soft Machine. Webb started his career with a series of ambitious concept alburns for artists such as Richard Harris, Thelma Houston and the Fifth Dimension. The latter’s Magic Garden album is a gem, and will be an ear opener If you have been judging the group solely by the drek they have been vinylising over the past few years. The two Richard Harris albums, A Tramp Shining and The Yard Went on Forever have similarly proved to be the peak of that singer’s career. There are six Webb solo albums, If you count the rip-off Jim Webb sings Jim Webb which Epic records produced to coincide with the singer’s growing popularity. But the Reprise album Words and Music was the first "official" release, so to speak. Words and Music is a surprisingly raw and gutsy album, considering the lush romanticism of Webb's work with Harris and the Fifth Dimension. The singer himself plays everything from accordion to 6" power saw, and Tom Scott is amongst the three other backing musicians. Some classic songs about the throes and woes of the music business ("P.F. Sloan", "Dorothy Chandler

Blues", "Songseller") and a rather clever medley in which he combined "Let It Be Me", "Never My Love" and "I Wanna Be Free", but this must have been one of the floptras of all time in New Zealand, so there are lots of copies round to be pounced on. The second Reprise album, And So On, never got NZ release which is a pity considering. it had Larry Coryell on guitar and Webb's own. versions of "Marionette" and "All My Love's Laughter", both of which eventually appeared on Art Garfunkel's recent Watermark album.

1972's Letters got local release and after some of the harshness of the second album, showed Webb aiming at a smoother style he sings his own "Galveston", redoes "Songseller" and offers a smooth version of Boudleaux Bryant's "Love Hurts". Webb's own "Campo de Encino" shows he can slash at the trendies when he wants to ("A chamber group playing without any clothes/Good for the oboes but hard on the cellos"), and Joni Mitchell lends her talents on one track.

Webb had still been busy as a producer of other people's albums his album with the Supremes, for instance, is an absolute delight, Glen Campbell's Reunion and, more recently, Art Garfunkel’s Watermark. The poor man even tried to cope with the Cher Bono/Allman monolith In the lady’s Stars album.

1974 and Jimmy Webb had become one of the Asylum stable, together with Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell et. al. His Asylum album Land's End is underestimated and painfully so. If you are a Joni Mitchell nut, you just have to hear her vocals on the infectious "Feet in the Sunshine". At the other extreme the orchestral pyrotechnics of "Land's End" recall his earlier lushness.

After a three year recording silence, Atlantic released Webb's El Mirage last year, which Is now around New Zealand shops on import. This is no disappointment, produced by George Martin and featuring such sidemen as Lowell George, Larry Knechtel and Kenny Loggins. Most interesting is Webb's new version of "P.F. Sloan” with the Nixon reference updated for the post-Watergate generation and he also includes "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”, already recorded by both Joe Cocker and Judy Collins. Like the Art Garfunkel-Jimmy Webb Watermark the songs range over Webb's career from 1970 to 1977 in this case. If you find a copy of Words and Music (and you should both easily and cheaply) you will have one of the most important albums of the early seventies. If you can get hold of El Mirage you will see 'how you can write intelligent and craftsmanlike rock music in America today without throwing your lot in with the Linda Ronstadt stable. William Dart