Jimmy Webb wrote dozens of songs that were recorded by Glen Campbell, including “Wichita Lineman” and “Galveston.” Webb performs many of them Friday in Torrance.
Beginning in the 1960s, Jimmy Webb was on a roll. Although he himself wasn’t known as a recording artist, his songs were being recorded by the likes of Richard Harris (“MacArthur Park”), The Fifth Dimension (“Up, Up and Away”), The Brooklyn Bridge (“The Worst That Could Happen”), as well as Joe Cocker, Johnny Cash, John Denver, Donna Summer, The Supremes, and many, many more, but most notably Glen Campbell. Webb performs Friday in the James Armstrong Theatre. The following interview was done via email earlier this week.
Q. This tour, which focuses on your musical relationship with Glen Campbell, comes at a seemingly crucial time, largely because of his having Alzheimer’s, and perhaps also because this year he turns 80 and you turn 70. So let me ask you, how did the idea for the tour come about and how did you put it together?
“My wife Laura Savini created the concept and produced this tribute to Glen’s overarching influence of the music of the ‘60s and beyond. Our show is not about Alzheimer’s, per se. The most important issue is timing. Because we are very close with the family I got the go ahead from them to do a multi-media tribute show with some of the tapes and photographs that I have. This is a show that celebrates our friendship and collaboration and his impact on music.”
Q. How many of your songs did Glen Campbell record? I imagine that you’ll do the popular ones (“Wichita Lineman,” “Galveston,” By The Time I Get To Phoenix”), but how do you decide on the others?
“It shakes out to about 80 individual songs. Some he recorded more than once. His personal favorite Webb songs are not the ones you would expect – they include ‘Ocean in His Eyes’, his own version of ‘Highwayman’, ‘You Might as Well Smile’, and ‘If These Walls Could Speak’.”
Q. The musical relationship between the two of you seems to have been almost preordained. Could you say a little about that?
“The first time I heard Glen on record I was 14 years old and was plowing wheat in northwestern Oklahoma. I prayed that I would have the chance to work with him. Five years later I was in L.A. and we had a single in the top 20. It was a cohesive mutually beneficial and productive relationship from the very first moment until the last. This was an inspired, destined collaboration.”
Q. It was after he’d recorded and had hits with a couple of your songs that you actually met for the first time. That must have been something? Do you still have clear memories of that first meeting in person?
“I have clear memories of meeting GC for the first time. Unfortunately, you will have to come to the show to hear that story.”
Q. Ten years age difference in the music world is quite a lot, especially when we’re in our 20s… Were you at all intimidated when the two of you first worked together?
“Extremely intimidated. Glen was a legend for his studio work and had played on virtually half the hit records that I had ever heard on the radio. So perhaps intimidated doesn’t really carry the gravitas of what I felt when I first realized that I was going to first meet him in the studio.”
Q. Did the two of you communicate rather regularly through the years? Even the best of friends often lose touch for a while, but in your case was the working relationship always there?
“We stayed in touch because we both had large families and our children interacted on a regular basis with birthdays, etc. There were times he was working with other producers and writers when we would have interruptions in our work life, but we always came back to each other. We performed together many times just for the joy of being on stage together.”
Q. Do you know what his favorite song of yours is that he recorded? Would that one be your favorite as well?
“There are two or three that come to mind. From the largely unexposed category was his Dove recording of “Where I am Going,” which is also one of my favorites. The last collaboration (we did was) on “Postcard from Paris,” a song we both cherished for 20 years before we were finally able to consummate. I think that if Glen Campbell would choose it would be from his popular repertoire. He liked ‘Wichita Lineman’ the best. I loved it just as much.”
Q. Were you pleased with how they all turned out, or did some of his recordings of your work not satisfy you?
“I was happy with every single record Glen made. It was a special chemistry; he was a remarkable arranger and brought treasure to the table. He never showed up in the studio without having thought the material through and having played it hundreds of times.
“He started out as a professional studio musician and that was the center of everything he did. Other artists have disappointed me from time to time.”
Q. Did he ever pass on one of your songs and then later regret it?
“He never passed on one of my songs. It was a situation (where) he tended to live with the music, sometimes for long periods of time, and he would come back and say he figured out how to do this song. He would never tell me he didn’t like something.”
Q. Did you know some of the other songwriters that Glen Campbell worked with, for example John Hartford, who wrote “Gentle On My Mind”?
“John Hartford was a much admired special friend of mind — as was Larry Weiss, Carl Jackson, who Glen Campbell wrote with, and Michael Smotherman, a fellow Okie who was signed to Glen’s publishing company for a while. I played ‘Southern Nights’ for Glen and he rearranged it to create a number one hit for Alan Toussaint. Songwriters tend to look after each other if they can.”
Q. When was the last time that you and Glen worked together; how did that go? When was the last time that you spoke with him?
“The last concert that we played live was in 2011 at The Palladium, The Center for Performing Arts in Carmel, Indiana. They told us that afternoon about the diagnosis and they went public the following week.
“Another memorable performance together was 2009 at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville, Tenn. The show was so fantastic it was literally the talk of the town though I was aware of little slip-ups in some of the lyrics. It was stuff only a writer would notice. He was in the studio bright and early by 9 a.m. next morning to work on ‘Phoenix’ for my duets album ‘Just Across the River.’ It was the only time we ever sung together on record.”
Q. I imagine you’ll be saving your best Glen Campbell anecdotes for the show, but do you have one or two that you’d care to share now?
“Last year, when I was in Nashville, I visited him at the memory care center that he was staying in. (I wrote an open letter for fans about this visit when I got home. The love and response to this was completely unexpected and is still something Laura [Webb’s wife] and Kim Campbell and I speak about). Glen has always been an upbeat guy and still is. I am looking forward to seeing him in Nashville next month. I will perform on May 3 in honor of his 80th birthday, at the Nashville City Winery. I am honored that his family requested me to perform, since Glen is unable. The venue will be packed with family and friends from the music world in Nashville and beyond. I will visit Glen before the show at the memory care center.”
Q. I know that you’re currently writing another book. Is this one more of a memoir?
“It is a memoir and it covers the first part of my life, the people I have worked and played with and the places I have seen, hopefully not in too much detail. It spans 1946–1974. It’s been so much fun that I’d really like to write a sequel.”
Q. How does a prolific and creative artist such as yourself stay relevant, as well as fresh and exciting?
“I never play a song the same way twice. And I never play it perfect. Glen said ‘If you play it perfect, they’ll want it that way every time.’
“I love the fans and the chance to meet with them personally after every show, and some shows I devote entirely to audience requests. A lot of times the audience is a lot hipper than we give them credit for — I am inspired by the songs they request!”
Q. When you started out, all of us bought only 45s and LPs. Later it was cassettes and CDs, but then at the end of the last century “the world of free downloads” emerged, and all that this entails. How has the change in how music is distributed and received affected you and your work?
“It has affected every songwriter and publisher adversely. It has been an assault by well-funded lobbyists with one goal: the destruction of copyright. I have served on the Board of Directors at ASCAP for the last 16 years and I assure you that we are not going to let this happen. Wherever and however music is played we will license it and fight so that every songwriter has their fair share.”
Q. What have been the highlights of your musical career so far? Also, anything that you would have done differently, if you could go back?
“Winning a Grammy for Song of the Year 1967, and a Grammy for Country Song of the Year 1986. Also being named Greatest Living Poet by the Academy of Country Music just this last week. A life that has been lived bears signs of wear. Even scars and sometimes outright breaks with reality. I am not the wealthiest guy or the prettiest guy, but I’ve had the best life.”
Jimmy Webb:The Glen Campbell Years takes place on Friday at 8 p.m. in the James Armstrong Theatre, 3330 Civic Center Drive, Torrance. Tickets, $25 to $35. Call (310) 781-7171 or go to torrancearts.org.
