The Songwriters

The Songwriters is supported in part by The Nashville Convention and Visitors Corporation Rusty and Kacie Gaston The Mike Curb Foundation SESAC, BMI and ASCAP Rich and Charlotte Hallworth Kerry O'Neil and Carla Wallace Additional support is provided by Welcome to The Songwriters.

I'm Ken Paulson, and today we actually have an extraordinary guest, one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Jimmy Webb.

Thank you very much.

It is a. .

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it is great to see you.

And not only see you, but to see you seated at this piano, which has some significance to you.

Well, this is the piano that Glen and I used to sit around and, sometimes rehearse.

Sometimes, sometimes just talk.

It seems like it's it's a member of the family, I guess, at this point.

And we're honored to be in Glen Campbell's home.

This is, you know, this is a pretty, pretty awesome room.

I like.

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This is one of the great rooms.

But yes.

And I think it's a reminder that Glen, Glen came from very humble surroundings, very little money and sort of created himself, which is one of the things that you're supposed to be able to do in this country.

And I was also able to do that.

So that's something that we shared.

Well, you you share a lot.

And I want to come back and ask you about those early days of Glen Campbell.

I am curious, though, as you began your career, how you know.

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the one thing the two of you share is that in the late 60s, two young men from humble surroundings exceeded all expectations.

Not only had to exceed your own expectations.

Did you see this coming?

At what age did you go I can put words and music together like other people can't.

Well, I don't think that I ever thought of it in, in, in an egotistical way at all.

It was my mother who put me on the piano bench and insisted that I learned to play, which I did under duress.

And when I was about 12, I was church pianist, which in her mind was the epitome of, you know, musical achievement.

I was the church pianist.

My goodness.

And and she had gotten me there with her own sweat, blood and tears.

But at that age, I mean, the thing that I think I could show you that would explain a lot - Please.

is that in church, you know, if I had the Baptist hymnal and I was going to play Amazing Grace, it would sound pretty much like this.

[plays piano Amazing Grace] Thats a short way of explaining that there weren't many chords involved in church music.

It was all basic.

It was basic for a very important reason, because the the congregation was part of the service.

- So you didn't throw anything too challenging at the congregation.

But I was immensely frustrated by all this.

So I met a teacher in Oklahoma City who really affected my life, Susan Goddard.

And she only died recently.

But without her, I don't think anything would have happened.

She put me through a course of piano arranging, and because she thought it would help me with my offertories, with my funeral, with all the different applications that came up, weddings and things like that.

So when she finished with me, I was able to arrange for piano which would Ill play the same song, but I'll arrange it for piano.

Amazing Grace So anyway.

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That's the church I want to go to, by the way.

I found out that I had a kind of a knack for that.

It came naturally to me, and it also freed me from reading music all the time.

And I can read music and I can write music.

They go hand in hand.

You can't do one without being able to do the other.

So the technical side of it, I, I, I cover probably not on a concert pianist level.

I didn't have that kind of training, but I could read, you know, within reason, a semi-difficult piece of music.

And with a little practice I can play it.

And then with a little more practice, I don't need the music anymore.

And in fact, I can turn it into something else that's I think, is what is the key thing that we're talking about here.

Because that's where songwriting comes from.

And it can elevate the song in ways.

I was struck by a great anecdote in your in your memoir about having a chance at a very young age to work with the Wrecking Crew and, and having to give them the music.

And you apparently had written it out the best way you could.

- Oh, yes.

- And that and that joy you felt when what was in your head came out of these fine musicians.

- I had written it on blue lined notebook paper, which I did not realize how dclass this was in Hollywood, but all the musicians were looking at it and going, notebook paper?

You know.

And that very first session I did with the Wrecking Crew at Motown, it was Hal Blaine.

And I remember after the session, he.

Well, what I'd done is I'd written the whole thing in concert because I wasn't sure about the different ranges of the instruments and the different keys and transpositions.

I was a little fuzzy on that.

You know, I was only like 15, 16 years old, [Ken laughs] but I would lay on the living room floor and listen to Teddy Randazzos arrangements of Hurt So Bad and I Think I'm Going Out of My Head and things like that.

Id go, - that's what I want to do.

But that I sufficed that day to write a score that was all in concert keys, which meant I used trombones, which are which are concert.

I used flute, which is concert.

The xylophone is concert.

Strings are concert.

All the strings, even the viola, all the different strings.

They're all concert.

They're all.

If I if I play a C chord on the piano, all those instruments would sound in harmony and they would sound good.

So that first arrangement was kind of an experiment.

But you know what?

It sounded pretty good.

You know, the the lines, the lines kind of.

Seal in the strings and, um.

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Inspir.

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inspired.

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I mean, totally, I mean inspired to the point of being on fire.

- Well, and you know what a young man needs to have at 14, 15, 16 is, well, obviously creativity, but confidence.

And to have Hal Blaine say something encouraging to you at the end of that session.

- He said, kid, he said, you stick with it.

He said, you're going to be, he said, you're going to be able to do this.

- Fantastic.

And he and when I, when I got my Grammy for Song of the Year for Up, Up and Away and I walked off the stage, he was there and he put his arms around me - Aww, thats fantastic.

and he said, I told you you'd make it.

Speaking of Up, Up and Away, I want, I want.

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personal story.

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When you were 17 or 18 and I'm talking 1967, you may have been a little younger.

I was 13 and 13 you embrace all the popular music.

You are just devour it.

And so 1967 was a magical year.

Sgt.

Pepper.

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Sgt.

Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band , and but but what's interesting when I look back, what are the three records I played most in 1967?

Sgt.

Pepper, Rewind by Johnny Rivers.

- Oh, really?

And the first Fifth Dimension album.

The latter two are Jimmy Webb albums.

In so many ways, where Johnny trusted you to give you all the rope you could ask for.

- He did, he did.

At first I think he was a little tentative because Up, Up, and Away, he he, he gave that one to Marty Paich, and, and Marty was one of the top three guys.

That was Marty Paich and Don Costa.

And, you know, maybe Gene Page, who used to do all the Motown stuff, Johnny Mandel, you know, there was some there was some hot arrangers, but not everybody was willing to share.

There was Marty, father of David Paich.

Toto, that, that whole tradition.

He was like a 12 year old kid running around the studio then, but his father would open up the score, like for Up, Up and Away and say, come on, Jimmy, he said, I want you to look at this.

I want you to see how this looks.

Very, very important to look at what a real professionals done visually and say, okay, graphically, I see what's going on here.

Right?

And to have someone literally showing you the ropes.

Right.

So that meant so much to me that mentoring.

- But on both albums I just wanted to point out you have a half dozen competitions, compositions on each: Rosecrans Boulevard Puppet People Puzzle People all those.

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- Pattern People. Pattern People. Excuse me, it was an alliteration I was searching for [Jimmy laughs] But just song after song that he allowed you to put on the record, embraced those, and then you were largely responsible for the sound of both records.

- I did all those charts.

And then, and then you put out your own version of Smile, which is Magic Garden .

- Yes.

Do you feel, do you feel looking back at Magic Garden with justifiable pride?

Well, I, I do, I think that, yeah, I, I think that I had come quite a long way in, in a couple of years from, you know, looking over Marty, Marty Paichs shoulder just to see what the score looked like.

I had a fabulous copyist in Bob Ross, and he had this little service called Bob Ross, Bob Ross Music, and it was on Sunset Boulevard, but it was still in a Southern California farmhouse that used to sit in the middle of an orchard.

So here's a white clapboard farmhouse sitting on Sunset Boulevard.

If you can believe that, because you will not see that again.

But he ran his whole operation out of there, and he because I always wrote my, my especially.

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I still do.

I write in concert because it's easier for me and I think faster.

And he would make sure that all the transpositions were correct.

But I had - a very bad reputation with the French horn players [Ken laughs] - in Hollywood because I was always just close to the line of impossible.

So the reason I cite the 67 is that I almost feel like, this is a little stretch, but just as it was transformative for the Beatles, it was kind of transformative for you.

You you had latitude you never had before.

And we heard things from you we'd never heard before.

And it was all impressive.

It was really - and because and things probably that you'll never hear again because.

um, there's something about the freshness of the experience that that that affects the music.

As for 1967 as generically as a year for change and a movement among the younger people in America towards peace, I was I was fortunate enough to go to the Monterey Pop Festival with Johnny Rivers.

And I can remember the first time we heard Sgt.

Pepper and it was like we just both sat there and looked at each other like, holy moly, you know.

What.

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what did we just hear?

And did we really hear it?

Let's play it again and see if we really heard that.

And I can't, in the same breath, I have to say that George Martin told me, and he was a great friend.

He was a dear friend.

Anyways, he was a father figure from me, George.

He told me factually that.

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Sgt.

Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band was inspired by Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys, and that they had had the same experience of listening to the album and saying, oh my God, play that again.

Did we really hear that?

And then set out to, he said, Jimmy, he said, we set out to equal Pet Sounds, you know.

A very modest wonderful man.

If I could ask you if you could play a little bit of Up, Up and Away and I'm curious as to what you thought of the arrangement that you didn't get to do.

Up, Up and Away I actually ripped I actually ripped the the intro off of The Association.

Along Comes Mary. - Of course.

And it's interesting to note that Glen was, Glen played that - Oh my goodness!

Yeah he.

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Bon-da-daa You know that that really far out intro that was Glen.

So let's talk about Glen and what transpired.

I mentioned Johnny Rivers first of all because like you, I think he's tremendously underrated.

And you made that clear in your performance last night.

But also he's the first to record Phoenix, right?

He wasn't the first, because when I was a contract writer and signed to Motown, they they would steer.

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I was one of the only white kids who was who was really signed as a writer there.

And they first of all, I have to say that I love, admire and respect everybody that I knew there.

And they treated me like, like like a king, like a little prince.

And they let me do anything I wanted.

It was like, oh, you want to do an orchestra session?

Okay.

They would call the orchestra now, you know.

And that was Mark Gordon, who who managed, who who eventually managed the Fifth Dimension.

At Motown, they would steer all the white artists towards me And I'm not speaking culturally here, I'm just saying this is the facts.

So they would Billy Eckstine to them.

He was he sounded white to them.

So I worked with Billy Eckstine and I would work on the less R&B, soulful things like The Supremes Christmas album.

They would let me work on that, and they had a kid named Paul Peterson, who was a regular on The Donna Reed Show and he had a hit, which was a kind of a novelty record called She Can't Find Her Keys which was kind of funny.

It was like, we've all seen our girlfriend going through the purse trying to find the keys, and it spoiling the romantic moment that, you know.

So they said, we need something for Paul Peterson.

He's still quite young, good looking.

He was.

It was it was a good choice for them as an artist.

They're trying to now spread out a little bit, move into some different areas.

And I was just part of that.

And I wrote By the Time I Get to Phoenix for Paul Peterson.

[laughing] Oh, my new favorite trivia question.

- That is great.

- And he hated it.

- Oh my goodness.

- And a. .

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- Because he'd had better material like, I Can't Find My Keys. No, I think that it was too much to take in.

It was just it's the complexity of of of the whole plot, I think was a little intimidating.

So they tried it with another couple of guys, Tony Martin, they had signed.

For those who may not know, you're to be forgiven.

He did a series of musicals for MGM and was a big star at that at one moment in time, and they had signed him.

So we went in and cut him doing it, and that didn't quite sound right either.

But the arrangement was gorgeous.

It was Gene Page, French horns, lots of strings.

We did it at the old Disney studio on Sunset, which I think is also they referred to it as Sunset Sound, but it was the Disney studio, and I flew my father out from Oklahoma because he had never heard one of my songs done with an orchestra, and he came in and I knew he knew Tony Martin, and he would he would identify with that.

And he sat there and that thing unfolded, you know, the way it does in the studio, through those big speakers and with the musicians actually sitting there playing the music.

And I think his mouth actually fell open, which I don't think I ever saw that happen before.

So, so let's give Johnny Rivers credit for recording at one point and then recommending it to Glen Campbell.

- Absolutely.

Because when I left Motown, they gave me a bunch of songs and they said, you know, no offense, but we're never going to do these songs.

- And of course they did later.

We're never going to do By The Time I Get to Phoenix, you can have that.

We're never going to do Up, Up and Away. You can have that.

We're never going to do, Didn't We. You can have that.

And they gave me a whole list of hit songs that I, that they weren't interested in.

Of course, you go back in Four Tops and they all end up doing those songs.

- Yeah, they ended upI, I I went over to Johnny Rivers Music and he started cutting those songs immediately.

Every, every single one of them he cut.

But on his album Changes that had beautiful, [sings] How can you tell me how much you miss me?

I love that song.

He wrote it.

When the last time I saw you you wouldn't even kiss me.

And so on that album, which is called Changes, he cut By The Time I Get to Phoenix. And of course, Poor Side of Town was this huge.

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I mean, it was unimaginable.

It was just giant record in those days.

And people were beginning to realize that the record business was a big business.

I'm trying to sort of fill in the background as well, because in a period of 4 or 5 years, it had come from being a very small industry patronized by only a few aficionados and connoisseurs.

It was now becoming mass media and Top 40 radio and playlists, and all this was beginning to evolve.

So, Glen and Al were invited over to Johnny's, I believe it was the mastering session, and he said, I want you to listen to this song.

We get to the song and they got to By The Time I Get to Phoenix, and he and they just stopped and sat down and he said, I invited you guys over here because I think Glen ought to cut this.

Now, this is Johnny saying, I think Glen ought to cut this, and this went.

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their relationship went back years.

Mercury Records and an album called The Long Black Veil .

And he always wanted Glen to make it, and he always knew Glen was good.

And he was a generous guy.

And he.

And Glen's like, rubbing his, rubbing his ears and he's saying, I don't get it.

Why do you want to give us this song?

He said, because I think it's probably going to be a hit.

And Johnny said to Glen, Glen, you can only have one number one record at a time.

- Well that's confidence.

That's great.

And and did Glen like the record?

- He ran.

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oh, he ran with it.

Yeah, he ran with it.

- That's great.

He's no Paul Peterson.

No no no.

And because I think that's where Delight, Arkansas and Elk City, Oklahoma kind of came together for the first time.

And the chemistry was right.

The chemistry was good.

And Glen was a lot of things.

But he was no fool.

And he, he, he had an ear for music.

He was a producer first.

And and all the, all the records that he made, they were his ideas.

Southern Nights, all those things, those those were Glen's records.

That concludes this week's edition of The Songwriters, but be sure to join us next week for even more of our conversation with the great Jimmy Webb.

For more information on The Songwriters, visit SongwritersShow.org The Songwriters is supported in part by The Nashville Convention and Visitors Corporation Rusty and Kacie Gaston The Mike Curb Foundation SESAC, BMI and ASCAP Rich and Charlotte Hallworth Kerry O'Neil and Carla Wallace Additional support is provided by