I recently received the
following press release, which, upon reading, I promptly followed up on. The
opportunity to interview legendary songwriter Jimmy
Webb could not be passed by.
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| Jimmy Webb photo by Jessica Daschell Walker |
To set the stage for
what follows, I present you with the press release in its entirety; partly for
informational purposes, partly so you can share in the excitement I felt upon
reading it:
“Legendary songwriter Jimmy Webb brings his “Songs and Stories”
tour back to the NY metro area with two shows - March 13 at the YMCA Boulton
Center for the Performing Arts in Bay Shore, and March 24 at City Winery in Manhattan.
Webb has topped the
country, disco and pop music charts with a list of artists astounding in its
diversity (“MacArthur Park,” “Wichita Lineman” and
“Up, Up, and Away” among his many iconic songs) and remains a
trailblazer among songwriters 50 years after his first hit. To say that Webb is
one of the last of a breed would imply that there is or ever was anyone quite
like him. He is the only artist ever to have received Grammy Awards for music,
lyrics, and orchestration. His book, Tunesmith: Inside the Art of Songwriting, in
addition to being a good read, is considered a “bible” among
musicians.
Now in his sixties, Webb
looks back on his days as a Midwestern teen navigating fame and fortune in Los
Angeles with vignettes of a music industry coming of age, enhancing his
virtuoso performance of iconic tunes with riveting tales of the inspiration
behind some of pop music’s biggest songs and singers, and a humorous tour into
the days and nights of a songwriting prodigy. Getting to know the man
behind such generational touchstones as “Worst That Could Happen” or “The
Highwayman” in concert is also a lesson in pop culture, an insider perspective
on the Nixon Sixties, the Rat Pack heyday, the London Mods, Laurel Canyon and
more, told by a charming yarn spinner who hasn’t lost sight of his roots despite
decades of international fame. More than a concert, an evening with Jimmy Webb
in performance is a master class you can sing along with.”
Author’s Note: Thanks to publicist Susan Hellman for such
a well-written piece!
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| A master class you can sing along with ... photo by Bob Barry |
The more research I did into
the man and his career, the number of questions increased exponentially to the
point of near-absurdity: Jimmy Webb’s songs are woven into the fabric of our
collective unconscious 50 years deep,
so to speak, and with his lifetime of singular experiences to share, the
concert’s description as a master class is spot-on to me! Furthermore, how does
one begin a conversation with such an individual—especially given a pre-set
limit of 15 minutes? As it turned out, we spoke for closer to a half hour, and
without further ado, I present you with our full conversation. Read and enjoy!
Roy Abrams: In November 2013, you gave an interview during which
you said, “I’ve spent 15 years doing “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” and “Wichita
Lineman,” and I just can’t do it anymore.” You’re still performing them live,
so in what sense did you mean?
Jimmy Webb: What I specifically had referenced to was recording
them. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to not perform those songs at one time or
another. I was specifically talking about my next record and my recording
career that I intend to pursue after this book I’m working on. I have all new
songs. I repeat the remark in the spirit in which it was made. I certainly
don’t want to record “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” again. I did it with Glen
(Campbell) on Still Within the Sound of
My Voice, which was a historical piece.
RA: Understood!
RA: You just mentioned that you’re working on a book?
JW: Yes, I am working on a book. It’s a memoir; it’s for St.
Martin’s (Press). I haven’t really done a lot of publicity about it so far, but
the word is out about it so there’s really no reason not to talk about it. It’s
something that they really like, to be honest with you. They really like it a
lot. I very much enjoyed working on it. Once I got into it, I sort of got used
to the stresses and strains of writing. I’ve devoted a lot of time to it. And
it’s supposed to be done September 1 of this year, so it looks like I’m going
to be devoting even more time to it. It is essentially, in scope, is my youth
as the son of a Baptist minister and how that kind of morphed into a career in
the recording industry in my teens. My intention is to end this chapter at this
book, with my transposition from the West Coast to New York City, which
happened around 1981. But I lived the whole California thing to the hilt. You
know, the “California Dream” was no dream! I was so lucky to be there at the
right time, and just enjoy some of the relationships I had with the Fifth
Dimension, Glen Campbell, David Geffen (who was my manager) … just loads of
other people … Gerry Beckley and Dewey Bunnell of America, and Brian Wilson … I
really lived it; it was almost like a storybook. “OK, California Dream coming
up!” you know?
RA: Speaking of California and another David … David Crosby—the
song that you contributed to A Thousand
Roads, “Too Young to Die” … that was, for me, a very profound one. That
album came out the same year that my Mom passed away. I used to go out to the
cemetery every Sunday, I’d have that album, and that song would invariably be
playing as I was pulling up. How did you first cross paths with Mr. Crosby?
JW: Well, David, Graham Nash, and sometimes Neil would be hanging
around, out, or however you want to put it, at David Geffen’s house. Stephen
Stills was a good friend of mine. He was the last person to leave my 30th
birthday party. The sun was coming up and he was still sitting in my living
room, playing the piano. So, it was a very, very small community. Joni Mitchell
was very definitely a part of that circle. And then, later on, (so were) James
Taylor, Peter Asher. Linda Ronstadt … all were friends. In fact, on Christmas Eve,
there was always a caroling party that came to my front door where I lived. The
carolers were James, Linda, Peter Asher, Joni Mitchell, I think sometimes
Jackson Browne; it would be a slightly different group every year, but there
they would be at the front door, singing, “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” … it
was bizarre! [laughs] We would serve some hot chocolate to them, and it was
like … it was just so many big stars in one place. Off we would go in their car
to someone else’s house! David and I have known each other for a long time. I
used to take him for a couple of flights in my glider when I was flying
sailplanes, which I did kind of manically for about ten years. I was
inseparable from my sailplane and the high desert; living out on the desert, sometimes
to the chagrin of my wife and sometimes to the detriment of my career. I love
the high desert and I love to fly.
RA: How did you end up at the Beatles’ recording session for
“Honey Pie”? What was that experience like?
JW: Well, it’s a long story. I don’t really know the exact
details. My manager at the time had contacts that went back to the hipster days
of Lenny Bruce … I’m not really exactly sure how he worked that out. I got
permission to go over there, which was kind of unusual because The Beatles
didn’t really like people hanging around their sessions that much. [laughs] I
don’t have a lot to report on that score because not a lot was said. I did sit
in the control room and see them working on “Honey Pie” for a while.
RA: When you record these days, are you an analog guy, an
analog/digital hybrid; what do you prefer?
JW: What the British call valves we used to call tubes. I love the
sound of tubes and people who say that tubes don’t sound differently; they just
don’t know what they’re talking about. They have a rounder, smoother … when you
hear Wes Montgomery’s recordings, you hear tube amplifiers. The whole analog
scene of “let’s go back to analog and start using acrylic records” – I’m not
too sure about that, because I think that CDs have been very serviceable except
for the jewel boxes, which should have
never made it. But they actually deliver a complete sonic portrait, from all
the high frequencies to all the low frequencies. I don’t like the dead, quiet
segments when I realize that there’s absolutely nothing there. That makes me
feel a little creepy. Now, you always had a kind of a hiss or groove or pop or
something that carried you through … something that you attached to as a
listener, even though there might be “silence” … when digital recordings are
silent, they’re really silent. They’re creepy silent. And that to me doesn’t
sound natural, because the world is full of all kinds of noises, even in
concerts. There’s a rustle, there’s a sound of humans moving their feet,
crossing their legs, turning the pages of (the concert program) … there’s
always some sound. So the idea of
there being no sound, packets of
absolute silence, is odd, alien. I think, in an ideal world, we would use valve
desks, we would have control desks that are tube-powered amplifiers, all of our
instruments would synthetically have some analog characteristics built-in to
the sound because it’s warmer and more reassuring to the listener. I think that
was your second choice, I’m a sort of analog/digital slash guy because I like
the clarity of digital recording but I don’t want to give up the “holding hands
in the dark” magical quality that just sounds like the ‘50s; it sounds like
another generation.
RA: I understand that you like working with young people. Who are
some of the young artists with whom you’ve recently worked?
JW: Well, I just worked with Rumor, Sarah Joyce, on my album Still Within the Sound of My Voice, she
came in with me on a duet on the title, so she’s definitely a “young person” …
she was under thirty then. There are countless, nameless individuals who I’ve
worked with in seminars and on-site for the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame. I give
master classes to a lot of the universities where I play concerts; I go in. You
know, if kids ask for them, I do critiques. I’m not terribly comfortable
criticizing them but if they really want me to do it, I’ll do it. I’ve hardly
ever met anyone who was satisfied with the critique, by the way! They’re like
[adopts surfer-dude accent] “You don’t understand what I meant!” All right,
let’s not do the critique! [laughs]
RA: As the Vice Chairman of ASCAP, can you talk about your
dedication to preserving the rights and the craft of the songwriter?
JW: First of all, as you noted, I have been working in this
capacity as a Board member for about 15 years, which kind of corresponds neatly
with the amount of time that I’ve been sober. Beginning with Napster, I feel
that (they) were the canary in the coal mine that caused people to start
believing that, possibly, something really disastrous could happen to the
industry. With Napster came the face of devaluation of copyright, and each
twist and turn in the road, it seems that we faced an even more tearing
monster; monsters out of Greek mythology. The last one that we encountered and
are continuing to cope with is streaming, and the rates that Pandora and
Spotify had sort of discussed among themselves … it’s really difficult for me
to go into technicalities, but ASCAP serves under a consent decree. We can’t do
anything that falls outside the purview of our consent decree, which is a kind
of Code of Conduct that is issued by the Justice Department. We have probably
one of the longest-standing consent decrees in the world. We’ve been under a
consent decree for 71 years. A bunch of songwriters, we live under the same
consent decree … because we’re dangerous people! [chuckles] My point being that
under this new regimen of streaming, the most draconian financial measures that
we could have ever possibly imagined have been inflicted on us. And we’re down
to .078% of the total purchase price for a performance. We’ve had things happen
like, you had an artist come along like Katy Perry or someone of that ilk, and
they would have a couple of hundred million performances, and Pandora would
eventually (God knows how long this would take)… but eventually they would get
a check for six or seven thousand dollars. This was patently unfair. In fact,
that’s when the tide of public opinion in America started turning in favor of
songwriters, was when they realized that this disparity was so outrageous that
not even a 4-year old child would say, “Oh, well, you get 50 cookies and I get
one cookie.” Is that fair? The chutzpah involved …. One young girl, I remember,
she got 6,000 performances from a completely homemade production and she was so
excited and she waited for a check and waited for a check and finally Pandora
sent her a check for $1.78. It was very common for artists to receive checks
for 25 cents or 50 cents or $1.20, very common. These sounded like shocking
stories, but then it got to be that this was happening to everybody.
RA: Is it reasonable to say that this current environment is
almost a throwback to the way songwriters were treated back in the early days
of rock and roll?
JW: Yeah, except that we were better off then! We still made more
money then than we do now. So, with the exception of a very few artists who are
sitting right on top of the pinnacle, the Beyonces of this world really have a
big shovel and take such a bite out of the market that there’s very little left
over to be divided between the remaining songwriters, but you had some stirring
examples of protest against this, when you had Taylor Swift pull all of her
masters that she owned, and her publishing which she owned, off Spotify. You can’t
be ordered to put your music on there, it’s just that it’s one of the only ways
to monetize your music; it’s where, seemingly, that that’s where the big money
is, yet it’s only there for a few people. And Taylor Swift sort of struck a
blow for all songwriters and pulled all her assets off Spotify. It was like,
“Hey! I didn’t know you could do that—“
RA: I have a newfound respect for Taylor Swift—
JW: —Well, of course you can! She’ll make more money; she’ll make
one hundred times more money selling her own merchandise than she will selling
downloads on Spotify.
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| photo by Bob Barry |
RA: For this current tour, I can fully understand the enjoyment
the audience gets from your shows. What does Jimmy Webb get from them?
JW: Well, it’s not a complete mystery. First of all, I enjoy doing
it. I really enjoy performing and I’m getting better at it. My voice is holding
up very well and I might go so far as to say has improved as I’ve gotten
older, and it’s really quite strong and capable of delivering some “money’
notes, like the high note at the end of “McArthur Park”, I can hit that note,
and hit it every night. I’ll be hitting it tonight; I won’t be worried about
it, I’ll just hit it! So, over a period of time, it’s a combination of the fact
that I’m more comfortable with it, I enjoy it. I make some money at it. I don’t
make a fortune with it, but I certainly cover my costs. I get an opportunity to
tie it in with my social media and increase my fan base. It doesn’t necessarily
exactly have the same function as it did back in the day, when one when out to
make their living playing concerts, but it is tied in with social media, which
is a place where you do, in a sense, make your living. Social media has become
the femoral artery, if you will, of the music business, and I guess the third
reason that I would tell you, and probably the most important, is that I really
enjoy the contact with the audience. I always go out and see them after, and
they always have stories they want to tell. It’s very important for them to
tell their stories, and I love to hear them speak on how their lives were
changed or how they interacted with certain songs, how much their father loved
the song, and how they played it at his funeral, God bless him. All this stuff,
which sustains me and makes me feel like it’s worthwhile creating another solo
album, which is what eventually I’m going to do after I finish this book, I’m
going to create another solo album of all original material called Nostalgia. And I’m writing from the
point of view of a man in his sixties, not “Gee, wouldn’t it be great to go
back and do all that again?” That’s not the line I’m pursuing artistically, I’m
looking at relevance with people who are no longer young. And I have a huge
audience out there with people who are no longer young. And so I want to write
music for them and for the way things have turned out for them. I don’t think
that the muse stops speaking to you when you reach a certain age. I think
you’re always obligated to be pertinent to your times, and reflective of the
age that you live in and the age that you are. I can’t go out and write 16-year
old love songs anymore. I think I do have something to offer and as long as my
health allows me to create, then I’ll continue creating for my contemporaries,
and I’ll try to be relevant in my own world. I can’t be relevant to some
18-year old in San Bernadino, California; I don’t see how that’s possible. I
can be relevant to my peers. That’s what I want to do!
—Roy Abrams
Long Island, NY
SEE JIMMY WEBB IN
CONCERT:
Friday March 13, 2015 at
8 pm
YMCA Boulton Center for
the Performing Arts
37 West Main Street, Bay
Shore NY
Tickets: $45 reserved
seating; (631) 969 1101 or http://boultoncenter.org/
Tuesday March 24, 2015
at 8 pm
City Winery (with Karla
Bonoff)
155 Varick St., New
York, NY
Tickets: $35-45; (212)
608-0555 or http://citywinery.com/
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