Fri September 28, 2007

Jimmy Webb prefers music old-fashioned way

By Gene Triplett
The Oklahoman

In this age of download services, instant stardom via TV talent shows and stars that fall as quickly as they rise, the son of a preacher man from Elk City still does his music business the old-fashioned way: writing his own songs and putting them out there an album's-worth at a time. And he'll probably be doing it that way for a long time to come.

"Live and at Large — Jimmy Webb in the U.K.” is his latest, featuring songs that span a 40-year career of writing hits for other artists, now sounding more emotionally genuine than ever as interpreted by the man who created them.

And even though tunes such as "Wichita Lineman” and "Paul Gauguin in the High Seas” were penned at different stages of his life, they seem to make sense as an album-format collection, tied together by his thoughtful monologue recollections of artists he's known, befriended and worked with, such as Richard Harris, Waylon Jennings, Glen Campbell and Frank Sinatra. It's not the kind of album that lends itself to the cherry-picking of single songs off the Internet at 99 cents a pop, a trend that's changing the face of the music trade.

Contrary to industry analysts' predictions, Webb says, it's not a trend that will kill the album concept.

"Artists are never going to give up the idea of making albums, because it is an art form,” he said in a phone interview from his home in Bayville on Long Island, N.Y. "It's the way you organize your music into something that makes sense. You can't just go along, popping out songs at random and have any continuity in your career, any real texture that you can go back and recount how a person changed or when they evolved into a different kind of artist, or a better artist, or went acoustic, or went electric or whatever.

"The album — it's the form that we use to communicate with our fans, with our public. That's not going to change. I don't see how that could possibly change.”

However, unlike other artists of his generation, Webb achieved his fame and fortune as a songwriter a full three years before he recorded his album debut, having penned the Grammy-winning songs "By the Time I Get to Phoenix” (recorded by Campbell) and "Up, Up and Away” (the Fifth Dimension) in 1967. A hastily assembled collection of demos was rushed onto shelves in '68 without Webb's permission, capitalizing on his new success, but his formal bow as a recording artist in his own right, "Words & Music,” didn't appear until 1970.

Ten albums and a lifetime of songwriting achievement have happened since, including a golden string of Grammy-winning hits he's composed (and often arranged and produced) for other artists, induction into the National Academy of Popular Music Songwriters' Hall of Fame, and the respect and admiration of the biggest names in show business, not to mention a legion of faithful fans — many of whom wept or fell in love to the cinematically romantic music and lyrics of "MacArthur Park,” "Didn't We” and "The Worst That Could Happen.”

It's the fans, Webb says, who'll keep album sales alive.

"The dyed-in-the-wool Bruce Springsteen fan will buy the album,” he said. "He'll buy all the tracks, and whatever you release. And artists are not going to give up the idea of making albums, even if record companies do and even if the public does.”

As for the severe drop in compact disc sales in recent years, Webb says, "I don't know what to say about that except if you devalue the product that you make and if you make really bad records, that's what happens. If you forget how important it is to create albums that have great songs on them, and if you believe that artists are going to come from ‘American Idol,' if that's what you believe, if you believe in ‘instant showbiz,' then that's what you're going to get. But you can see there's no longevity to it, and it certainly has not been good for the business.”

On the "American Idol”-bred success of fellow Oklahoman Carrie Underwood, Webb said, "Oh, I'm very happy for her. I'm very happy for her. Certainly I take nothing away from her. And I'm sure that now she can go through the excruciating process of actually enduring the disappointments and the hard knocks of a long-term career in show business that just builds character and actually creates an artist of great depth and sensitivity.

"It's not winning a contest on TV. And the fact that we think this is the new way to pick our stars is really self-delusion. It's not the way the public is going to pick stars.”