Hard rock drove this more upbeat music from the airwaves, but Jimmy Webb's legacy remains in the catalog of fine songs he wrote at a precocious age. Those incandescent melodies entered my childhood and have stayed with me. Glen Campbell rode the Witchia line, drove through Phoenix, and ruminated about Galveston. You watched the Carole Burnett show, and there were the 5th Dimension singing "Up, Up and Away." Turn on the radio, and Richard Harris' cake melted in the rain. For information or tickets call 896-2511 or visit : People who want to learn basic songwriting should go elsewhere. It makes for interesting songs because I’ve seen enough of life and changes worth exploring. I embrace getting older and try to write about that. My next album of all original songs is mostly written. Submerge yourself in the society of songwriters and play every chance you get. Songwriting has to be the most important thing in the world to you. Run the other way! The only way to become a songwriter is to become a songwriter. We need to remember that lots of kids are going back to record stores because they like the way records feel and look, how they sound. Our challenge is to adapt quickly, or frankly, perish. I was having lunch with Jann Wenner at Rolling Stone yesterday, talking about the changes in the publishing world - that we’ve seen the coming of a new technology, a new way of life. Our goal is to keep money flowing to the people who create. We definitely know how George Custer felt: encircled and embattled with all kinds of enemies. It’s been a ragtag game of catch-up ever since as we try to figure out ways to get songwriters paid in an environment that doesn’t want to pay them. I’ve been on the board of ASCAP for 16 years, and once Napster came out, that was the end of the recording business as we knew it. When CDs came out, it was hard for me to comprehend they were the last physical expression of music. How do you feel about the changes you’ve seen in the music industry? I love performing, writing and arranging. Sometimes I lived up to people’s expectations and more often I didn’t. I settled into a grind of making a living in the music business, which is something completely different. It represented everything I’d been struggling for since the age of 13. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing, that explosion of approval. It was a heck of a night, but it means a lot is expected of you and you try to re-create that if you can. Does it set the bar too high to win a Grammy at 21? “Up, Up and Away” and “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” won a total of eight Grammy Awards in 1968. Motown was colorblind, kind and sweet to me. Now colleges teach songwriting, but when I left high school, there was nowhere to go except into the business. Motown gave me a college education that songwriters couldn’t get back then. As a 16-year-old, I didn’t know what to expect, but they made me part of the family, teaching me everything: engineering, producing, where the chorus and bridge went, how to write a hook. I was the only white kid in the building. What was it like being a songwriter for Motown in the ’60s? If you’re going to see people who aren’t a little nervous, you’re going to see the wrong people. It’s definitely a feeling of stepping off a cliff. Style: What about performing still appeals to you? The 69-year-old lands in Richmond this month to kick off the Heritage Music series. while Webb continues to put out his own albums and tour extensively. Since then, Webb’s music has been covered extensively by such artists as Frank Sinatra, the Four Tops, Dusty Springfield, Nina Simone and R.E.M. The following year, Webb won a Grammy for writing the 5th Dimension’s hit “Up, Up and Away,” while the Brooklyn Bridge made his “Worst That Could Happen” a staple of teen club dance parties.īut it was when Webb wrote and produced an album for Irish actor Richard Harris - the grandiose, seven-minute “MacArthur Park,” a complex piece written in four movements - that his arranging chops really shined. In 1967, Campbell released the Webb-written “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” and made it an instant pop standard. He had to borrow the dollar and his father’s car to get it. The first record that a 14-year-old Jimmy Webb bought was Glen Campbell’s “Turn Around, Look at Me” in 1961.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |