Review: Jimmy Webb

Photos by Susan Pfannmuller/Special to The Star

If this show needed a name, it would have been appropriate to call it something like “Jimmy Webb: The Storyteller and Name-Dropper Tour.”

Friday night, Webb, one of America's most hallowed songwriters, regaled a crowd of about 100 persons at Knuckleheads with an evening of music, history and upscale gossip.

The show lasted slightly longer than 100 minutes; at least 60 of those were spent entertaining his audience with tales pulled from a lifetime spent composing some of the most memorable songs in the American pop songbook and pitching them to some of the largest legends in American music. If any songwriter of the past 50 years has the license to tell stories and drop names from his star-spangled history, it is Webb, the songwriter behind some of the biggest pop hits in the last half of the 20th century.

Friday’s show was a solo/acoustic performance. Webb sat on stage at a baby grand piano, told stories and sang 10 of his most famous and popular songs and one or two lesser-known tunes, songs like “The Highwayman,” “Galveston,” “Up, Up and Away,” “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” and “Wichita Lineman.” 

He confessed before and late in the show that his voice wasn’t up to some of the feats it was required to execute, and he was right. But he was playing to a crowd that was there for something more than a greatest-hits recital. So more than the songs themselves, the point of this show was to give perspective to one man’s storied career and its place in a music world -- specifically, the world of songwriting -- that has wandered far from its heydays, when quality was paramount, when world-class composers wrote songs for superior vocalists. 

Webb delivered some of his best-known compositions, and his versions conveyed their traits and merits, their lyrical and musical panache, craftwork and sophistications. But his stories put most of them into a variety of contexts, some humorous, some historical, some novel and trivial.

He talked of his many friendships and acquaintanceships with stars like Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Glenn Campbell, Billy Davis and, the greatest of all, Frank Sinatra, whom Webb still calls “Mr.” He told stories about his time at Motown, about turning down a chance to write with lyricist Johnny Mercer, about bumping into President Clinton, courting British model Rosemary Franklin and auditioning songs for Art Garfunkel. He talked about the rise of the songwriters who could also sing, like Carole King. He recalled his bible- and gun-toting father, an ex-Marine who got the song “Up, Up and Away” put back in rotation on his hometown radio station in Oklahoma, after it had been pulled because of its supposed drug references.

He choreographed a sing-along during “Worst That Could Happen,” a hit for Johnny Maestro & the Brooklyn Bridge (the subject of a long anecdote), told a long story about visiting Sinatra’s mansion to present a batch of songs and then accompanying him to Las Vegas many times thereafter. After that lively tale, Webb sang one of the loveliest songs in his catalog, the bittersweet “Didn’t We.” He closed with one of his best and best-known songs, “Wichita Lineman,” made famous by Campbell, a star from another era who is now in a very public battle with Alzheimer’s disease. That was as appropriate a closer as any: a song about a guy on the road on the Plains, working the telephone lines and missing his woman. In this digital age, its story feels as quaint and antiquated as the lifestyles of composers like Webb, who mastered the convergence of poetry and music and got the fame and fortune they deserved for delivering some of the most timeless music of their time.

Setlist: The Highwayman; Galveston; Just Across the River; Up, Up and Away; By the Time I Get to Phoenix; What Does a Woman See In a Man; All I Know; Worst That Could Happen; Didn’t We; Wichita Lineman. 

The openers: Four days after returning to Kansas City from their two-week tour of Norway with the Rainmakers, Bob Walkenhorst and Jeff Porter warmed up the Jimmy Webb crowd with a lively acoustic-duo set (including Porter on piano) that included favorites like "The One That Got Away," "Half A Horse A Piece," "The Wages of Sin" and "Downstream."

| Timothy Finn, The Star

Comments

[Larry Luper]

Prolific writer as you pointed out. Webb did too!
Tim, you use your outlet to do the same, but you objectly and accurately do you job.

[Ellen K.]

My one word review of Jimmy Webb: Wow.

More comments from me here: http://therainmakersmessageboard.yuku.com/topic/2994/Feb-10-2012-Bob-and-Jeff-open-for-Jimmy-Webb

Also a photo of Jimmy Webb and a couple of Walkenhost & Porter.

[blee226]

tim nails it, as usual. i could have done with some of Jimmy's more introspective songs, but a trip through his classics suits me just fine, too.

[Ratchet]

Thanks for the link and a nice review Ellen.

I love your quote... "So, thanks to getting there late, we were stuck with some of the best seats in the house. I can live with that."....

I wonder if that is the first, and last, time that was/will be said?

You lucky duck getting to go for free. I wanted go, but $30 was pricey for what I knew would be a shortish show..... oh well, I'm glad you had fun.... and Timm Finn going proves it was worthy. I made a mistake of not going, dang it.

ps
was the song you dont like and he didnt play the "cake out in the rain" song? (for some reason) I always liked Richard Harris's version of that song, mellow as it is.

[Ellen K.]

Yes, the cake in the rain song, "MacArthur Park". It's actually got some pretty nice lyrics in the rest of the song, though. I actually kinda wish he'd done it, just to hear what he'd say to go with it.

[pellboy]

Yeah, the song is more straightforward then the chorus would indicate, but still, if any his songs required a backstory, what more than MacArthur Park? Not to mention an anecdote about Richard Harris performing it. Oh well, seemed like a good show and would have been cool to hear about all those tunes I grew up with. Timely performance around the Grammys as well as he's won his share.

[Mike M]

I was at the show, first time at Knuckleheads. I had been wanting to see Jimmy Webb for several years and wasn't disappointed. His stories were great and it was a pleasure to meet him after the show. I too wondered why he didn't play MacArthur Park, I should have asked him after the show. We had great seats and I thought $30 wasn't a bad price. A great review of the show.

[Sammy the toad]

He told many stories about Richard Harris & sang MacArthur Park last time he was at Knuckleheads. This time his stories were about Frank Sinatra & Glen Campbell.