Songwriter Webb laments yesteryear
‘Human element’ lacking from modern music
“I’m not a Luddite. I carry a Macbook Air everywhere I go,” says Jimmy Webb, over tea and croissants, “but I think the bane of computer science is that it’s allowed us to make perfect records. And I don’t think the best records, like the great ones we made in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, were perfect.”
Webb grew up recording on cumbersome valve- powered equipment. Now, you can knock out a digitally pristine album on a laptop with one hand while tweeting with the other.
“Getting into a studio used to be like the holy grail. We’d say, ‘You can have half the publishing on these songs if you let us record them in your studio.’ That seems insane now.”
Webb laments the absence of “the human element” from contemporary recordings, though that’s hardly the case with his own live performances.
When it’s just Webb and a grand piano, it can be something akin to a triumph of mind over matter, as he mixes wonderfully circuitous anecdotes about his life in music with hair-raising renditions of his best-known compositions, several of which he has re-recorded for his new album, Still Within the Sound of My Voice. His singing is fairly safe in a mid-range piece such as Wichita Lineman, but when he attempts soaring high notes he can sound like a lovesick coyote with a hangover.
Still, Webb’s primary claim to fame is as a songwriter rather than a performer. He had his first major hit in 1967 when The 5th Dimension’s recording of Up, Up And Away went to No. 7 in the U.S. (and won several Grammys). It was followed by By the Time I Get to Phoenix, Wichita Lineman and Galveston, all of them hits for Glen Campbell, while actor Richard Harris scored a massive hit with MacArthur Park. Subsequently, Webb has written cantatas and music for film and TV, and had songs recorded by Frank Sinatra, Isaac Hayes, Linda Ronstadt, Barbra Streisand and Art Garfunkel.
Nonetheless, it irks him that he’s sometimes dismissed as a purveyor of easy listening.
“I wrote about nuclear weapons, I wrote about the environment, and the war in Vietnam. Me, Harry Nilsson, all of us hated the war and president Nixon, and I hated it when people would impugn my credentials by saying I was middle of the road.”
Webb won’t be remembered as a protest singer, but devotees of his craft will find it easy to love Still Within the Sound of My Voice. It’s a shrewdly picked batch of songs with guest stars ranging from Lyle Lovett, David Crosby and Graham Nash to Kris Kristofferson, Brian Wilson and Rumer.
It’s a companion piece to Just Across the River from 2010, and between them, the two albums amount to a summary of the breadth and longevity of Webb’s career.
Webb’s inspirations were from the Great American Songbook — composers such as Johnny Mercer, the Gershwins and Cole Porter. He treasures his memories of Sinatra, who recorded four of his songs and always gave due credit.
“Mr. Sinatra loved songs and he loved songwriters. He would sit all afternoon with Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen and listen to songs. ... My name became known because guys like Mr. Sinatra would go on stage and say, ‘Now I’m going to do a song by Jimmy Webb.’ ”
Webb now channels his energies into battling for songwriters’ rights as chairman of the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
“There’s a group of very determined steely-eyed people who would benefit greatly if copyright just went away, but I’ll fight them until my last breath to create an Internet model that reimburses composers for their efforts.”