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Jimmy Webb.
Growing up as the son of a Baptist minister in Oklahoma was
certainly not an impediment for the legendary songwriter Jimmy
Webb. Though initially influenced by country and gospel, the
young Webb (Macarthur Park, By The Time I Get to Phoenix,
Didn't We?...) was soon to experience, through the all-pervasive
influence of radio.
"Radio was a huge power in the United States. Even if you were sitting out in the Mid West, in the middle of this vast oceanic prairie, you were connected to the Top 40 with the Beach Boys, Motown and all that - but I think more than anything else, Burt Bacharach and Hal David. They were my early idols."
Another major influence upon Webb's quietly introspective lyrical
style was the confessional honesty of the winsome Joni Mitchell.
"She had a tremendous influence on me. I felt that her songs
were stunning because of her conversational tone and because
she would come out with something like "Look at those losers
betting on that hockey game" [Raised On Robbery]. It
was all so conversational and spontaneous and I was just overwhelmed
by this because my songs had always been very structured and
came out of that Brill Building mentality."
In the late 'sixties Webb was seemingly able to straddle to the extremes of American politics brought about by the Vietnam war: while he was working with such conservative artists as Sinatra and Glen Campbell, he chose to socialize with the likes of David Crosby and Joni Mitchell.
"I was fortunate in that way," he muses. "There was a certain price to pay because I think that you cannot look at the late 'sixties without realizing that everything was overlaid with very palpable political stigma. So one couldn't work with Sinatra, or Campbell who was definitely on the right with John Wayne and all those folks. One couldn't work with them without picking up some of the stigma. So when you went from the world I was in with Sinatra and Streisand, and walked across the street to hang out with Don Henley, and with Joni and Linda Ronstadt, you more or less had to offer up your liberal credentials. I had to declare myself as a liberal early on to people like David Crosby: 'No, I'm not into the war, so please don't mistake me for someone who supports this crazy thing that was going on in Vietnam just because some of the people I've worked with are 'middle of the road' acts.'"
Since last touring Australia in 1999 Webb has been busy with a number of projects including a book on songwriting ('Tunesmith') - a situation he found highly informative and yet during the four years that it took to complete the task, Webb found it impossible to compose. In 1993 he recorded a highly praised album with American Songbook specialist Michael Feinstein called 'Only One Life - The Songs of Jimmy Webb'. Since then he's written two Broadway shows based on the films 'A Bronx Tale' and the classic Western 'Shane', and recently released a new album 'Twilight Of The Renegades' which covers as eclectic a landscape as any of his earlier releases. Subjects include Marilyn Monroe and Gauguin's final trek to the Marquesas, as well as the more familiar introspective lyrics with which he has been long associated.
Upon mentioning that Jacques Brel had followed in Gauguin's footsteps in migrating to the Pacific, Webb becomes enthusiastic.
"Well, I did not know that! That's completely fascinating. And it's the subject of my next dissertation. I have to get to the bottom of this because I've always wanted to go there and see Gauguin's burial place and I'm totally fascinated by the whole mystique of running off to paradise. If you were to look at my bookcase, you'd find book after book of non-fiction maritime works and anthologies. It's just something that I'm obsessed with. I'm a sailor, and for a Midwestern I'm terribly attracted to the ocean."
In fact Webb finds great similarities between the Oklahoman prairies and the sea.
"If you look at the prairies with your eyes kind of squinched down tightly together, it almost looks like the ocean. It's very flat and it goes all the way to the horizon and that same expansive freedom that the soul has out on the flatlands, one feels that on the ocean as well. We used to call the covered wagons that traversed Oklahoma 'prairie schooners'. And there is a feeling on traveling from one little town to the next that they're almost islands of civilization in the middle of this nothingness."
Brett Allen-Bayes
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Jimmy Webb plays The Governor Hindmarsh on Thurs 8 Sept.
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