Jimmy Webb - His Yard Goes On Forever

As Jimmy Webb releases his first album for almost 10 years and prepares for UK concerts, Kingsley Abbott talks to the man who has found success as a writer, performer and orchestrator

Jimmy Webb has written hit songs that are lodged in our shared consciousness: Wichita Lineman, Didn’t We, MacArthur Park, Up-Up And Away, By The Time I Get To Phoenix. He has had them recorded by a wealth of music talent from Sinatra to R.E.M., through to the country quartet of Jennings, Cash, Nelson and Kristofferson. With this track record, Jimmy Webb has to be taken very seriously indeed.

Born in August 1946 in Elk City, Oklahoma, there was musical awareness and appreciation but not enough initially to suggest his eventual career direction,

“I was raised in the church, with full exposure to hymns. Through my mom, I became church pianist and started writing at about the age of 12/13. I was influenced by classical music, but was also becoming increasingly aware of the pop that was coming out of Broadway.

“I sought to emulate the Brill Building/Aldon sounds of the new young writers like Gerry Goffin & Carole King and Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil. I though that the work of Bacharach & David was the ultimate, and I also loved the work of Teddy Randazzo, who did some wonderful work with Little Anthony & The Imperials. Teddy was a disciple of Don Costa.”

Home life in Oklahoma, so far from the throb of New York’s music spearhead, and …

by Kingsley Abbott
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