jimmy webb tour australia

December 7, 2023

Bookings closed.

An Evening With Jimmy Webb

Thursday, dec 7 at melbourne recital centre sunday, dec 10 at sydney city recital hall, an evolving career spanning genres and generations.

Legendary, multiple Grammy-winning songwriter Jimmy Webb returns to Australia for two very special solo concerts in Sydney and Melbourne this December. Jimmy has topped the charts from pop to country to soul and even disco with interpretations by some of the industry’s greatest singers, including Glen Campbell, Art Garfunkel, Linda Ronstadt, and Richard Harris, with covers by everyone from Frank Sinatra, Waylon Jennings, Donna Summer, and Isaac Hayes to Guns n’ Roses, Josh Groban and Little Big Town.

In concert, Jimmy performs songs which are timeless touchstones for a generation, such as “ MacArthur Park”, “Wichita Lineman,” “The Highwayman”, “All I Know”, “Honey, Come Back”, “The Worst That Could Happen”, “Where’s The Playground, Susie”, and “Galveston”.

Since Webb’s Grammy sweep in 1968 when his own “Up, Up and Away” and “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” vied for Song of the Year (and “Up” won), through to the use of his “Do What You Gotta Do” in Kanye West’s “Famous,” the man often praised as “America’s Songwriter” remains an icon in popular music – and continues to challenge his artistic boundaries with projects like a classical nocturne. Now in his touring show “An Evening with Jimmy Webb” touring Australia in December 2023, and his literary memoir, THE CAKE AND THE RAIN (paperback and audiobook) Webb brings fans of his music a unique connection to their favorite songs, revealing the stories behind his hits as far back as his first songwriting job at Motown through a career trajectory that took a teen preacher’s son from a farm town in Oklahoma to the top of his longed-for profession, with pitfalls and blessings in equal measure between.

In concert, the man who gave the world what has been called “the first existential country song” (“The Highwayman”) and confounded generations of radio listeners with the brilliance of a lyric about a cake left out in the rain enhances his virtuoso performance of iconic tunes with riveting tales of the inspiration behind some of pop music’s biggest songs and singers, and a humorous tour into the days and nights of a songwriting prodigy, a lesson in pop culture, an insider perspective on the musical giants of the Sixties, the Rat Pack heyday, the London Mods, Laurel Canyon and more, told by a charming yarn spinner who hasn’t lost sight of his roots despite decades of international fame.

More than a concert, an evening with Jimmy Webb in performance is a master class you can sing along with. As Webb performs five decades of music on this tour, the songs and stories resonate with his longtime fans as well as new devotees introduced to the music through covers by modern chart toppers including Five for Fighting (“All I Know”), Rumer (who stormed the UK in 2012 with her take on “P.F. Sloan”) or any number of reinterpretations of “Wichita Lineman” by R.E.M., Urge Overkill, Keith Urban, and more. Songs made famous as recorded by an impressive and ever-widening range of artists are discovered anew with revelations by the man who first brought them to life on the piano.

A close read of Webb’s memoir reveals gems like the genesis of songs like “P.F. Sloan,” and “Mac Arthur Park” as the details are woven into the stories he tells of his days in London and Los Angeles, navigating a world that fueled his lyrics and nearly broke him on more than one occasion. His songwriting style expanded in the longer format of a memoir, Webb gives the reader access to pivotal moments during the music scene of the 1960s and 70s — riding Mr. Sinatra’s private elevator for a one on one meeting, elbow to elbow with Elvis, an urgent request from John Lennon, the first meeting that sparked his decades-long partnership with Glen Campbell and more.

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“… A night with Jimmy at the keys is not unlike getting to hear George Gershwin or Cole Porter live. It’s hard to believe one guy could have written all these amazing songs…if you get a chance to see him live, grab it. People ask why nobody writes songs like they used to. Fortunately for us all, Jimmy Webb still does.” – American Songwriter Magazine

Jimmy 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. Jimmy Webb has 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.” – The Kansas City Star

Jimmy Webb Australian Tour Announced

August 17, 2023 News

Legendary, multiple Grammy-winning songwriter Jimmy Webb returns to Australia for two very special solo concerts in Sydney and Melbourne this December.

Jimmy has topped the charts from pop to country to soul and even disco with interpretations by some of the industry’s greatest singers, including Glen Campbell, Art Garfunkel, Linda Ronstadt, and Richard Harris . In concert, Jimmy performs songs which are timeless touchstones for a generation, such as “MacArthur Park”, “Wichita Lineman,” “The Highwayman”, “All I Know”, “Honey, Come Back”, “The Worst That Could Happen”, “Where’s The Playground, Susie”, and “Galveston”.

“An Evening with Jimmy Webb” touring Australia in December 2023, and his memoir, The Cake and The Rain, brings fans of his music a unique connection to their favorite songs, revealing the stories behind his hits as far back as his first songwriting job at Motown through a career trajectory that took a teen preacher’s son from a farm town in Oklahoma to the top of his longed-for profession, with pitfalls and blessings in equal measure between.

Jimmy Webb plays Melbourne Recital Center – Thursday 7th December and Sydney City Recital Center Sunday 10th December.

Tickets available now with details at www.davidroywilliams.com

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Dec 7, 2023.

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Melbourne Recital Centre

An evening with jimmy webb.

Presented by David Roy Williams

Jimmy Webb, songwriter for Glen Campbell and Linda Ronstadt, brings his show to Melbourne, revealing stories behind his hits.

A songwriter’s songwriter, Jimmy has written for Glen Campbell, Linda Ronstadt, Richard Harris, Art Garfunkel, and many more, including hits MacArthur Park , Wichita Lineman , The Highwayman , Up, Up and Away , Honey, Come Back , All I Know , By The Time I Get to Phoenix , Worst That Could Happen , Where’s The Playground, Susie , and Galveston .

Webb has also released over a dozen critically acclaimed solo albums.

With his show An Evening with Jimmy Webb in Sydney and Melbourne, the multi-Grammy winner brings fans of classic song-craft a unique connection to his music, revealing the stories behind his hits from his first songwriting job at Motown, through a career trajectory that took a teen preacher’s son from a farm town in Oklahoma to the top of the music world

This is the man that Frank Sinatra claimed to have penned the greatest torch song ever written. Do not miss this phenomenal concert.

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Booking Information

Thursday 7 December 2023 7.30pm

• Elisabeth Murdoch Hall

A reserve $149.90 B reserve $119.90 C reserve $99.90 D reserve $89.90

A Transaction Fee between $4 and $8.50 applies to orders made online and by phone. Delivery Fees may also apply. For bookings for over four people, please call our Box Office during business hours on 03 9699 3333 for more information.

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JIMMY WEBB – AUSTRALIAN TOUR 2023

On sale Thursday August 17 – www.davidroywilliams.com

An evolving career spanning genres and generations.

Legendary, multiple Grammy-winning songwriter Jimmy Webb returns to Australia for two very special solo concerts in Sydney and Melbourne this December.

Jimmy has topped the charts from pop to country to soul and even disco with interpretations by some of the industry’s greatest singers, including Glen Campbell, Art Garfunkel, Linda Ronstadt, and Richard Harris, with covers by everyone from Frank Sinatra, Waylon Jennings, Donna Summer, and Isaac Hayes to Guns n’ Roses, Josh Groban and Little Big Town.

In concert, Jimmy performs songs which are timeless touchstones for a generation, such as “MacArthur Park”, “Wichita Lineman,” “The Highwayman”, “All I Know”, “Honey, Come Back”, “The Worst That Could Happen”, “Where’s The Playground, Susie”, and “Galveston”.

Since Webb’s Grammy sweep in 1968 when his own “Up, Up and Away” and “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” vied for Song of the Year (and “Up” won), through to the use of his “Do What You Gotta Do” in Kanye West’s “Famous,” the man often praised as “America’s Songwriter” remains an icon in popular music – and continues to challenge his artistic boundaries with projects like a classical nocturne.

Now in his touring show “ An Evening with Jimmy Webb ” touring Australia in December 2023, and his literary memoir, THE CAKE AND THE RAIN   ( paperback and audiobook )  Webb brings fans of his music a unique connection to their favorite songs, revealing the stories behind his hits as far back as his first songwriting job at Motown through a career trajectory that took a teen preacher’s son from a farm town in Oklahoma to the top of his longed-for profession, with pitfalls and blessings in equal measure between.

In concert, the man who gave the world what has been called “the first existential country song” (“The Highwayman”) and confounded generations of radio listeners with the brilliance of a lyric about a cake left out in the rain enhances his virtuoso performance of iconic tunes with riveting tales of the inspiration behind some of pop music’s biggest songs and singers, and a humorous tour into the days and nights of a songwriting prodigy, a lesson in pop culture, an insider perspective on the musical giants of the Sixties, the Rat Pack heyday, the London Mods, Laurel Canyon and more, told by a charming yarn spinner who hasn’t lost sight of his roots despite decades of international fame.

More than a concert, an evening with Jimmy Webb in performance is a master class you can sing along with.   As Webb performs five decades of music on this tour, the songs  and stories resonate with his longtime fans as well as new devotees introduced to the music through covers by modern chart toppers including Five for Fighting (“All I Know”), Rumer (who stormed the UK in 2012 with her take on “P.F. Sloan”) or any number of reinterpretations of “Wichita Lineman” by R.E.M., Urge Overkill, Keith Urban,  and more.   Songs made famous as recorded by an impressive and ever widening range of artists are discovered anew with revelations by the man who first brought them to life on the piano.

A close read of Webb’s memoir reveals gems like the genesis of songs like “P.F. Sloan,” and “Mac Arthur Park” as the details are woven into the stories he tells of his days in London and Los Angeles, navigating a world that fueled his lyrics and nearly broke him on more than one occasion.   His songwriting style expanded in the longer format of a memoir, Webb gives the reader access to pivotal moments during the music scene of the 1960s and 70s — riding Mr. Sinatra’s private elevator for a one on one meeting, elbow to elbow with Elvis, an urgent request from John Lennon, the first meeting that sparked his decades-long partnership with Glen Campbell and more.

About Jimmy Webb

Jimmy Webb’s numerous accolades include the prestigious Ivor Novella International Award (2012) and the Academy of Country Music’s Poet Award (2016).  Webb was named in the top 50 of  Rolling Stone ‘s 2015 “Greatest Songwriters of All Time.”  He received his first gold record at the age of 18, and was the youngest inductee into the Songwriters Hall of Fame (which he later chaired).  He is the only artist to ever receive Grammy Awards for music, lyrics, and orchestration. Webb’s first book,  Tunesmith: Inside the Art of Songwriting , is considered a “bible” among professional musicians. He has time and again paved the way for songwriters in the ever-changing media landscape, pioneering commercial use of pop songs (“Up, Up and Away” as the centerpiece of the 1970 Trans World Airlines campaign) and spearheading the ongoing effort to preserve the rights of songwriters and their intellectual property rights on the board of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP).

Webb has released a dozen solo albums since the 1970s, while continuing to write for other artists.  His CDs  Just Across the River  (2010) and  Still Within the Sound of My Voice  (2013) feature duets on some of his biggest songs with friends Billy Joel, Vince Gill, Willie Nelson, Linda Ronstadt, Lucinda Williams, Mark Knopfler, Brian Wilson, Art Garfunkel, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Lyle Lovett, Keith Urban, and more.

In 2016, Webb premiered his first classical piece, “Nocturne for Piano and Orchestra (Nocturne for “Lefty”)” with Orchestra Kentucky.  His brilliantly written memoir,  The Cake and the Rain  (St. Martin’s Press) brings Webb’s unique career into focus, written with the same sense of poetry and story as his many hits.

In Webb’s latest release, a CD titled  SlipCover  (May 2019), he shares his piano arrangements of what he considers the finest compositions of his generation.  Featured are songs written by The Rolling Stones, Randy Newman, Billy Joel and Paul McCartney.

For more, visit  www.jimmywebb.com .

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• December 10, 2023 Setlist

Jimmy Webb Setlist at City Recital Hall Angel Place, Sydney, Australia

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• Highwayman Play Video
• Galveston Play Video
• Up, Up and Away ( The 5th Dimension  cover) Play Video
• Do What You Gotta Do Play Video
• Shattered Play Video
• By the Time I Get to Phoenix Play Video
• Didn't We Play Video
• Whatever Happened to Christmas? Play Video
• Wichita Lineman Play Video
• MacArthur Park Play Video
• Time Flies ( Rosemary Clooney  cover) Play Video

Edits and Comments

5 activities (last edit by MikeBlack93 , 11 Dec 2023, 12:27 Etc/UTC )

Songs on Albums

• By the Time I Get to Phoenix
• Didn't We
• MacArthur Park
• Wichita Lineman
• Time Flies by Rosemary Clooney
• Up, Up and Away by The 5th Dimension
• Do What You Gotta Do
• Whatever Happened to Christmas?

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Jimmy Webb Gig Timeline

• Oct 15 2023 Kent Stage Kent, OH, USA Start time: 7:35 PM 7:35 PM
• Dec 07 2023 Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre Melbourne, Australia Start time: 7:30 PM 7:30 PM
• Dec 10 2023 City Recital Hall Angel Place This Setlist Sydney, Australia Add time Add time
• Mar 01 2024 Catalina Bar & Grill Los Angeles, CA, USA Add time Add time
• Mar 02 2024 Catalina Bar & Grill Los Angeles, CA, USA Add time Add time

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Jimmy Webb & Friends - Live On Stage With Orchestra

Last year’s Australian tour, An Evening with Jimmy Webb , saw sold out shows around the country – his fans turned up to packed halls to honor the scale of his musical and lyrical output. Webb charmed his audiences with his songs and wonderful anecdotes of an extraordinary life, as only a genuine master of his craft can.   Says Jimmy of his return visit “ Australia with its vast shorelines, ferry boats and natural wonders has always been my favourite place to play. Now to perform live with Australia's most popular rock and pop stars - and orchestra - I am blown away. I am honoured, and we are going to pull out all of the stops for the audience!"   

The multiple Grammy-winning songwriter has topped the charts: from pop to country to disco numerous times with interpretations by some of the industry’s greatest.  He’s worked with Glen Campbell, Art Garfunkel, Linda Ronstadt, and too many others to name.  Jimmy’s been covered by everyone from Guns n’ Roses to Josh Groban to Little Big Town.  Since Webb’s Grammy sweep in 1968 when his own “ Up, Up and Away” and “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” vied for Song of the Year (and “Up” won), to the use of his “ Do What You Gotta Do” in Kanye West’s “Famous,” the man often praised as “America’s Songwriter” remains an icon in popular music – and continues to challenge his artistic boundaries with projects like a classical nocturne.    His most famous songs are touchstones for a generation yet remain timeless - “ MacArthur Park,” “Wichita Lineman,” “Worst That Could Happen,” and “Galveston.” His memoir, The Cake and the Rain , The Wall Street Journal (USA) described as “quite possibly the best pop-star autobiography yet written.”

AMERICA’S GREATEST SONGWRITER : 

AUSTRALIA’S GREATEST MUSICIANS : 

Jimmy Barnes, David Campbell, Kate Ceberano, Ed Kuepper & Ian Moss

Live on stage for two shows only – Sydney & Melbourne. 

Do not miss out – tickets will sell fast.

Tickets on sale Thursday 3 rd May

For full concert information, please visit:

www.zaccariaconcerts.com.au

JIMMY WEBB & FRIENDS

AUSTRALIAN TOUR 2018

Sunday 5 th August

State Theatre, Sydney

Tickets available at:

www.ticketmaster.com.au

Thursday 9 th August

Hamer Hall, Melbourne

www.ticketmaster.com .au

About Jimmy Webb:

Jimmy Webb’s numerous accolades include the prestigious Ivor Novella International Award (2012) and the Academy of Country Music’s Poet Award (2016).  Webb was named in the top 50 of Rolling Stone ’s 2015 “100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time.”  He received his first gold record at the age of 18, was the youngest inductee into the Songwriters Hall of Fame (which he later chaired).  He is the only artist to ever receive Grammy Awards for music, lyrics, and orchestration. Webb’s first book, Tunesmith: Inside the Art of Songwriting , is considered a “bible” among professional musicians and college students.   He has time and again paved the way for songwriters in the ever-changing media landscape, pioneering commercial use of pop songs (“Up, Up and Away” as the centerpiece of the 1970 Trans World Airlines campaign) and spearheading the ongoing effort to preserve the rights of songwriters and their intellectual property rights in the world of free downloads with his ongoing work for nearly 20 years on the board of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP).  

Webb has released ten solo albums since the 1970s, while continuing to write for other artists.  His CD Just Across the River features duets on some of his biggest songs with friends Billy Joel, Jackson Browne, Vince Gill, Willie Nelson, Linda Ronstadt, JD Souther, Glen Campbell, Lucinda Williams, Michael McDonald and Mark Knopfler.    A follow up, Still Within the Sound of My Voice , features Brian Wilson, Art Garfunkel, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Lyle Lovett, Carly Simon, Keith Urban, and more.   

In October 2016 Webb premiered his first classical piece, “Nocturne for Piano and Orchestra (Nocturne for “Lefty”)” with Orchestra Kentucky.  His brilliantly written memoir, The Cake and the Rain (St. Martin's Press, April 2017) brings Webb’s unique career into focus, written with the same sense of poetry and story as his many hits.  For more, visit www.jimmywebb.com

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We came with the highest of expectations since Jimmy Webb is a revered figure in our home. We left with the very best of feelings about our experience.

It was almost surreal for our group of three avid fans.

The synergy of the evening was palpable because the

total was far greater than the sum of its parts.

The two hours melted into a celebration of greatest about a true icon. The setting was intimate and his ability to communicate the stories about the music were actually better than the music itself.

We had three regrets. There was a overzealous patron behind us who sang along loudly virtually the whole evening, often yelling out comments. The seating was very uncomfortable and oddly, Jimmy chose to play a tune written by Billy Joel and did not sing By The Time I Get To Phoenix. Actually, despite the first two problems, we would have gladly sat another hour.

This was best evening of entertainment I have been to, maybe ever. We were part of real greatness last night and we won’t forget what he did for us.

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Catalina Jazz Club

Krasnoff Theater, Tilles Center, LIU Post

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Jimmy Webb tour dates and tickets 2024-2025 near you

Want to see Jimmy Webb in concert? Find information on all of Jimmy Webb’s upcoming concerts, tour dates and ticket information for 2024-2025.

Jimmy Webb is not due to play near your location currently - but they are scheduled to play 3 concerts across 2 countries in 2024-2025. View all concerts.

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American songwriter legend Jimmy Webb on lying for John Lennon and the “cake in the rain” song

LEGENDARY songwriter Jimmy Webb reveals his real thoughts on the unlikely 90s pop classic that shaped his career ahead of his Australian show.

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ONE of America’s greatest songwriters Jimmy Webb cheekily regards his unlikely pop classic MacArthur Park as an “irritant”.

Famous for its cryptic lyric “someone left the cake out in the rain”, the song was originally recorded by Irish actor Richard Harris almost 50 years ago and has been covered more than 150 times over the decades.

In Australia for a national tour and to launch his memoir The Cake and the Rain , Webb said the over-the-top song was never meant to be a single because it was almost seven-and-a-half minutes long.

But underground radio stations looking for a new sound in the late ‘60s picked it up and when an influential top 40 station in Los Angeles finally agreed to add it to their playlists despite its length, it became a hit.

The song became his first No. 1 when Donna Summer released her disco version in 1978 but despite all the love for it from fans and his peers, Webb said there is still plenty of hate directed at MacArthur Park .

“The Wu Tang Clan cover was a notable milestone,” he said.

“The song started out as an irritant because we enever envisioned it as a single because it was sort of performance art on record,” he said.

“I told Richard at the time not to get his hopes up about it because it’s too long, they’re not going to play it on the radio.

“Radio did play the full length and the completely unimaginable happened that MacArthur Park , this elephant parked on the backside of the album, emerged as a hit single.

“People were yelling at me that it didn’t make sense and why was I jerking them around with this song, they couldn’t understand it and thought I was deliberately playing a joke on listeners. “People were mad about it. They still are.”

They are perhaps less mad about his string of hits with his good friend Glen Campbell , which included the revered trio of tunes Galveston , By the Time I Get To Phoenix and Wichita Lineman .

And Webb soundtracked the jetset era in Australia when his song Up Up and Away became the theme for the airline TAA in 1972 and still features on commercials.

The songwriter has no idea how lucrative the song has been for him but suspects it has earned him hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties over the decades.

“I did catch a publisher once holding $300,000 which I think came from Up Up and Away ,” he said.

Webb’s success in the late 60s led him to become one of the most sought-after songwriters in Hollywood and the “socially awkward” acquaintance and friend of superstars from Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra to Harry Nilsson and John Lennon.

He sat in on The White Album recording sessions and famously saved Lennon from being thrown out of the US.

During Lennon’s notorious Lost Weekend, Nilsson and the ex-Beatle got into strife at the Hollywood club the Troubadour, where he allegedly assaulted a photographer and broke her camera.

Nilsson asked his best mate Webb to give a deposition saying he had been with the drunk and drug-addled pair and did not see Lennon strike anyone.

Webb laughs uproariously when recalling a Topanga Canyon nude party when he had to ask Joni Mitchell and entrepreneur David Geffen to get their gear off if they wanted to stay.

“I found out you could almost get used to a whole party of nude people,” he said.

“I did know Joni before that party but still ... I had never seen either her or David nude before. The thing was you didn’t wanna be uncool so you just told them it was a nude party.”

For all the enduring pop songs that have soundtracked millions of lives over the decades, one of the most surprising revelations from the 70-year-old composer and artist is he believes he was the first to ever record the F-bomb on a song.

“In Song Seller , one of the verses goes ‘I’ll cut you a track that’s truly truckin and if you want me to I’ll sing about f---in”. That song killed my record, it was too far ahead of its time,” he said.

Jimmy Webb performs at the Powerhouse Theatre, Brisbane on Saturday, Melbourne Recital Centre, June 27, City Recital Hall, Sydney on June 29 and State Theatre, Perth on July 1.

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• Artists Profiles

JIMMY WEBB AUSTRALIAN TOUR INTERVIEW

• AustralianMusician
• May 31, 2017
• Features , Interviews

There’s no questioning this man’s songwriting credentials, Jimmy Webb has been crafting wonderful songs for over forty years, many of which have become treasured standards. His platinum selling songs include: “ Wichita Lineman,” “By The Time I Get To Phoenix,” “Galveston,” “The Moon’s A Harsh Mistress,” “All I Know,” “The Highwayman,” “Up, Up and Away,” “MacArthur Park,” among others. In a career spanning more than five decades, Jimmy has received every major award a songwriter can get; including three Grammy Awards, the Academy of Country Music’s Poet Award and PRS for Music Special International Award at the prestigious Ivor Norvello Awards in 2012. His songs have been recorded or performed by Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Judy Collins, Isaac Hayes, Art Garfunkel, Glen Campbell, Linda Ronstadt, R.E.M., Michael Feinstein and Carly Simon. Glen Campbell, has recorded the largest number of Jimmy’s hits and it is this partnership that has become one of the most famous in the music business. Jimmy has also just released The Cake and The Rain, a memoir of his journey to date.

In June this year, JIMMY WEBB will be in Australia performing his classic hits as well as relating some of the fascinating tales from his book. Longtime fan NATALIE RHOOK caught up with Jimmy on the phone recently to discuss his Australian tour, the book and his career in general.

You perform at least sixty to seventy events per year and have toured Australia multiple times. Do you find that your profile is growing and expanding to younger audiences? I don’t wanna brag but we’ve been doing really well, venues have been getting bigger and better, people have been coming out. We are very active on social media now and that has worked really well for us. I just finished a book for St Martin’s press called The Cake and The Rain. That’s helped raise my profile and the book is doing well. We’re hoping to have it in print in time for the Australian shows. We’ll have a book, a nice new concert with new material and I’ll be where I love to be: in Australia.

The Cake and The Rain , your recently published memoir, begins with your upbringing in rural Oklahoma and West Texas and features an alternating timeline between stories from your childhood interlaced with your song writing career in California, particularly the period between 1969 to 1973. It was tricky but the structure worked out in the end. I have my eye on at least a volume two possibly. That book is just the very beginning, it’s about my family, my growing up in Oklahoma, which is not totally unlike certain parts of Australia. Very remote. I was also very remote and lived in a kind of private world, which I try to describe in the book. Then came the transition between the stark desert of West Texas and the panhandle of Oklahoma and the transition between that and Hollywood and the ‘Summer of Love’ and the search for the endless summer and the biggest wave. It’s really the contrast, switching between the aesthetic of the son of a baptist minister and the tiny churches and growing up in these areas which were underpopulated and then suddenly being in the middle of Hollywood. It sort of conveys to the reader a bit of the shock and awe that I felt when I began to experience some song writing success.

The poet WH Auden famously described his appearance as resembling that of “a wedding cake that had been left out in the rain”. The simultaneous metaphor and incongruity of this image obviously appealed to you and you put it to use as a song lyric in Macarthur Park, and more recently as the title of your memoir. You have said that you really like the way words “clash around together and bang up against each other, especially in songs” . Where did your love of language begin? Two things I was into as a kid, I mean really a kid, talking about eight, nine, ten years old: I started reading science fiction writers like Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Frederick Pohl, while on the other hand, I was reading poets, Dylan Thomas, William Carlos Williams, Pablo Neruda, TS Eliot. I was learning a tremendous amount about the uses of language from these poets. To me, each poet was a different teacher and had a different technique almost akin to the great painters: they all use paint, they all use colours, but it was the difference in the way they use them that made them great painters and the same was true of these great poets. I became convinced that there was something in them that was worth studying and worth absorbing, not plagiarising, but certainly applying to what I was trying to do as a songwriter. I still recommend to all young writers that they read poets. There’s still a lot of young people today who do read poetry. Young people are not all poetically illiterate as some would like to believe. I know that there are a lot of young poets writing and they don’t really have ambitions to be famous. They write poetry because of its purity. They write it for themselves. They have it in the proper context, because they don’t think of it as a vehicle to carry them to fame and fortune. They just write poetry. I love the purity of that. I always try to get young writers who are looking for help and want their songs to be better to please read the poets. I’m not necessarily talking about Rudyard Kipling here, I’m talking about reading the early 20th century poets and to get a feel for the way they use language.

Do your ideas for song lyrics come from stories read or stories lived and do you find yourself moving between the poetic use of language for its own sake and documenting the rigours of the real world? For me, life takes care of the way I write songs. I just see things with such a different perspective now. Looking back, and I’m not going to be delicate about it, I’m seventy and life looks different from seventy. I just continue doing the same thing: I write. I’m a narrative-style songwriter, a style descended from people like Hank Williams, the earliest writer that I was really crazy about and further influenced by Bob Dylan and the Beatles. I’ve always been writing songs about working class people in difficult situations. That, and a few love songs here and there. These days people are facing a whole new set of difficult circumstances in our world. The average person is really presented with some daunting problems today with economic issues, personal safety, terrorism and bombs going off everywhere… the Veterans are looking for a way to end their lives in a dignified way and families are trying to cope with that. My own father passed away last year at age ninety-four and there’s all this drama at the end of life that no-one has written a lot about as it is not the most romantic part of life. But I intend to put the microscope on it and write songs about it. That’s who I am. I still have my faculties and I can still focus and write reasonably good songs. I’d really like to write about some of the inequities I see around me. Thankfully, my life is quite comfortable but other people my age are not treated nearly as well as they should be treated at least here in the United States. I know that you have a version of National Health in Australia, and here we have this tremendous row going on whether we are going to take care of our ageing and sick people. It’s ridiculous. I’ve always believed that songs have to say something about their society, they have to mirror their own times and say something about what’s going on in the social fabric. To me there’s a lot of stuff to write about.

How important was your early role as the organist at your local church in the way you developed as a composer? Playing the church organ was when the original ember of creativity really came to life, and eventually became a flame and eventually became a fire that burned up my whole life and has dominated my existence ever since. When I began taking hymn tunes like Amazing Grace and doing piano arrangements in different tempos, I’d use different keys, sometimes I’d go to a minor key for a while then a major key and use transformational elements like alternate chords or alternate harmonisation or alternate basses, more complex chords that one would find in the hymn book and that way, broadening the emotional appeal of the arrangement so that it would last 20 minutes without boring people to death. That kind of improvisation is at the root of a lot of American music like jazz, to some degree folk music. In rock music, the emphasis on the individual musician and his take on any given song including covers of other peoples songs, well, that’s the kind of factory floor where you learn to create your own melodies and hopefully you make them original enough that they can stand out on their own and can be top songs on their own.

How have you seen the recording studio become more of an instrument in itself as opposed to just the space where performance is captured? It was Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys who began to use echo effects and manipulate tape and actually physically involve the studio in the recording process, so that when you heard the record, you also heard these fantastic effects and layering of vocals. You were suddenly able to do multi track recordings with 4, then 8, then 16, then 24 tracks. Then along comes the Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album as an attempt to equal or better the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds . As a new kind of technical sophistication began to take over in the studio it was new microphones and echo units, just electronic boxes that created that effect of George Martin’s famous phasing. It was actually done the first time by taking two tape machines and playing back the very same material on two tape machines in sync then playing with the sync and taking them slightly in and out of phase with each other. An early use of it was a record called The Big Hurt by Tony Fisher in the fifties and it had this amazing phasing effect on it. All this stuff now was so much a part of making a record that I believe at a certain point there was a threshold moment when the studio actually became a part of the music not just a witness to the music. And I think that point was somewhere around the time of Pet Sounds and Sgt Pepper .

Glen Campbell had enormous success with your songs Wichita Lineman and Galviston. Prior to working with him, I’ve read that your very first record purchase was in fact a Glen Campbell record… I drove 22 miles from my little town to another little town and bought a record by Glen called Turn Around, Look at Me . And then I got down on my little baptist knees and prayed and said “Dear Lord, let me write a song that is as good as this and please, if it wouldn’t be too much extra trouble, could you please let me meet Glen Campbell and have him record one of my songs”. At the time, nothing could have been further from reality.

AN EVENING WITH JIMMY WEBB AUSTRALIAN TOUR 2017

Saturday 24 th June Powerhouse Theatre, Brisbane Tickets available at: www.brisbanepowerhouse.org

Tuesday 27 th June Melbourne Recital Hall, Melbourne Tickets available at: www.melbournerecital.com.au

Thursday 29 th June City Recital Hall, Sydney Tickets available at: www.cityrecitalhall.com

Saturday 1 st July State Theatre, Perth Tickets available at: www.ticketek.com.au

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An Evening with Jimmy Webb

David Roy Williams Presents

Contemporary Music

General Public Tickets On Sale Thursday 17 August, 11am

A songwriter’s songwriter, Jimmy has written for Glen Campbell, Linda Ronstadt, Richard Harris, Art Garfunkel, with hits “MacArthur Park”, “Wichita Lineman,” “The Highwayman”, "Up, Up and Away", “All I Know”, “Honey, Come Back”, "By The Time I Get to Phoenix", “The Worst That Could Happen”, “Where’s The Playground, Susie”, and “Galveston”. 

Jimmy Webb has had songs performed by a who’s who of the world’s greatest singers – Barbara Streisand, The Supremes, Frank Sinatra, Waylon Jennings, Donna Summer, Isaac Hayes, Judy Collins, Joe Cocker, Carly Simon, Kenny Rogers, Amy Grant, and Billy Joel are just some of the voices that have been lent to Jimmy’s songs. Webb recently saw his “Wichita Lineman” in the set-lists of both Guns N’ Roses, and Toby Keith, and used prominently in an episode of Ozark. He even had a rap hit with Kanye West (“Do What You Gotta Do” a central hook in “Famous”).

Jimmy Webb has also released over a dozen critically acclaimed solo albums, and almost countless collaborative efforts.

With his show “An Evening with Jimmy Webb” in Sydney and Melbourne, the multi-Grammy winner brings fans of classic song-craft a unique connection to his music, revealing the stories behind his hits from his first songwriting job at Motown, through a career trajectory that took a teen preacher’s son from a farm town in Oklahoma to the top of the music world. This is the man that Frank Sinatra claimed to have penned the greatest torch song ever written. Do not miss this phenomenal concert.     

Photo credit: Sasa Tkalcan

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JIMMY WEBB Returns in December 2023

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Legendary, multiple Grammy-winning songwriter Jimmy Webb returns to Australia for

two very special solo concerts in Sydney and Melbourne this December.

Thursday 7th December at Melbourne Recital Centre

Sunday 10th December at Sydney Recital Hall

In concert, Jimmy performs songs which are timeless touchstones for a generation, such as “MacArthur Park”, “Wichita Lineman,” “The Highwayman”, “All I Know”, “Where’s The Playground, Susie”, “Didn’t We”, “The Worst That Could Happen”, and “Galveston”.

TICKETS ON SALE NOW

Jimmy has topped the charts from pop to country to soul and even disco with

interpretations by some of the industry’s greatest singers, including Glen Campbell, Art Garfunkel, Linda Ronstadt, and Richard Harris, with covers by everyone from Frank Sinatra, Waylon Jennings, Donna Summer, and Isaac Hayes to Guns n’ Roses, Josh Groban and Little Big Town.

In concert, Jimmy performs songs which are timeless touchstones for a generation, such as “MacArthur Park”, “Wichita Lineman,” “The Highwayman”, “All I Know”, “Honey, Come Back”, “The Worst That Could Happen”, “Where’s The Playground, Susie”, and “Galveston”.

Since Webb’s Grammy sweep in 1968 when his own “Up, Up and Away” and “By the

Time I Get to Phoenix” vied for Song of the Year (and “Up” won), through to the use of his “Do What You Gotta Do” in Kanye West’s “Famous,” the man often praised as

“America’s Songwriter” remains an icon in popular music – and continues to challenge his artistic boundaries with projects like a classical nocturne.

Now in his touring show “An Evening with Jimmy Webb” touring Australia in

December 2023, and his literary memoir, THE CAKE AND THE RAIN (paperback and

audiobook) Webb brings fans of his music a unique connection to their favorite songs, revealing the stories behind his hits as far back as his first songwriting job at Motown through a career trajectory that took a teen preacher’s son from a farm town in Oklahoma to the top of his longed-for profession, with pitfalls and blessings in equal measure between.

In concert, the man who gave the world what has been called “the first existential

country song” (“The Highwayman”) and confounded generations of radio listeners with the brilliance of a lyric about a cake left out in the rain enhances his virtuoso

performance of iconic tunes with riveting tales of the inspiration behind some of pop

music’s biggest songs and singers, and a humorous tour into the days and nights of a songwriting prodigy, a lesson in pop culture, an insider perspective on the musical

giants of the Sixties, the Rat Pack heyday, the London Mods, Laurel Canyon and more, told by a charming yarn spinner who hasn’t lost sight of his roots despite decades of international fame.

More than a concert, an evening with Jimmy Webb in performance is a master class you can sing along with. As Webb performs five decades of music on this tour, the songs and stories resonate with his longtime fans as well as new devotees introduced to the music through covers by modern chart toppers including Five for Fighting (“All I Know”), Rumer (who stormed the UK in 2012 with her take on “P.F. Sloan”) or any number of reinterpretations of “Wichita Lineman” by R.E.M., Urge Overkill, Keith Urban, and more. Songs made famous as recorded by an impressive and ever widening range of artists are discovered a new with revelations by the man who first brought them to life on the piano.

A close read of Webb’s memoir reveals gems like the genesis of songs like “P.F. Sloan,” and “MacArthur Park” as the details are woven into the stories he tells of his days in London and Los Angeles, navigating a world that fueled his lyrics and nearly broke him on more than one occasion. His songwriting style expanded in the longer format of a memoir, Webb gives the reader access to pivotal moments during the music scene of the 1960s and 70s — riding Mr. Sinatra’s private elevator for a one on one meeting, elbow to elbow with Elvis, an urgent request from John Lennon, the first meeting

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Jimmy Webb is arguably the finest American pop songwriter of his generation, who went from struggling composer to seeming overnight success in 1967 with such chart-topping renditions of his tunes as the Fifth Dimension’s “Up, Up and Away” and Glen Campbell’s “By the Time I Get To Phoenix,” yielding the gifted 21 year-old artist eight Grammy awards in a single year. Few have exhibited such versatility or such bold artistic reach within a pop context. Like John Lennon and Paul McCartney or Brian Wilson, Webb’s approach was groundbreaking and visionary, yet his songs were adaptable to an impressive range of artists – Top 40, country, rock – and immediately embraced by mainstream audiences.

Jimmy Webb is the only artist to ever receive Grammy awards for music, lyrics and orchestration. He has been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Webb is best known for the classics he provided for such artists as Glen Campbell (“By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” “Wichita Lineman,” “Galveston”), Richard Harris (“MacArthur Park,” “Didn’t We”), The Fifth Dimension, (“Up, Up and Away”), The Brooklyn Bridge (“Worst That Could Happen”), Art Garfunkel (“All I Know”), Linda Ronstadt (“Adios”), and Joe Cocker (“The Moon’s a Harsh Mistress”). Jimmy launched his own performing and recording career in the 70’s, releasing six albums in eleven years, while managing to write hits for other recording stars. In 1999, Jimmy Webb wrote the consummate book on songwriting, Tunesmith, which was proclaimed as the “finest book about songwriting of our time,” by Musician magazine. Webb’s latest album, Just Across the River, was released in 2010 to critical acclaim.

The critical acclaim composer Jimmy Webb has received during his more than forty years of success is as remarkable as the accomplishments they honour: he is a member of the National Academy of Popular Music Songwriter’s Hall of Fame, the Nashville Songwriter’s Hall of Fame, and, according to BMI, his “By The Time I Get To Phoenix,” has been the third most performed song from the 60s until 1990, with “Up, Up and Away” on the same list in the top thirty. Webb’s, “Wichita Lineman” has been listed in MOJO Magazine’s worldwide survey of the best one hundred singles of all time in the top fifty, and was singled out in the Oct/Nov 2001 issue of Blender as “The Greatest Song Ever.” Even singer/songwriter James Taylor was nominated for a Grammy in 2010 for “Best Male Pop Vocal” for his rendition of the song. The National Academy of Songwriters also named Jimmy as 1993’s recipient of their Lifetime Achievement Award, although TIME Magazine was early to acknowledge Jimmy Webb’s range and proficiency back in 1968 when it referred to his astonishing string of hits, and commented on “Webb’s gift for strong, varied rhythms, inventive structures, and rich, sometimes surprising harmonies.” In 1999 Jimmy was inducted by actor Michael Douglas into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame as one of the State’s most celebrated sons, he was inducted onto the Board of Directors for The Songwriters’ Hall of Fame in early 2000, and currently serves on the Board of Directors for ASCAP. In 2011 Webb was unanimously elected as Chairman of The Songwriters Hall of Fame, replacing Hal David’s ten year reign in the same position.

Though best known for the instant classics he provided for such artists as Glen Campbell (“By The Time I Get To Phoenix,” “Wichita Lineman,” “Galveston,” “Where’s The Playground, Susie”), Richard Harris (“MacArthur Park,” “Didn’t We”), the Fifth Dimension (“Up, Up and Away,” “This Is Your Life”), The Brooklyn Bridge (“Worst That Could Happen”), Art Garfunkel (“All I Know”), Linda Ronstadt (“Easy For You To Say”), Joe Cocker (“The Moon’s A Harsh Mistress”) and so on, Jimmy Webb continues to write songs that are as carefully crafted and magical as the earlier ones. Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, and Kris Kristofferson hit #1 in the late eighties with another Webb standard, “The Highwayman,” a ballad which won him yet another Grammy for Best Country Song of the Year, and a CMA Award for Single Of The Year. Linda Ronstadt, who has recorded a multitude of his songs throughout her recording career, included four of his efforts on her double platinum album, “Cry Like A Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind.” With a discography that reads like a “Who’s Who” in the music world, Webb’s songs continue to grace a multitude of major recording artists’ albums, from Tony Bennett and Rosemary Clooney, to Urge Overkill, Reba McEntire, and Shawn Colvin. Having five top ten hits within a 20-month period, Jimmy Webb concluded the 1960’s with an international name that was bandied around on the musical air currents as a “new genius.” Webb began the Seventies intent on launching his own performing career, releasing six albums in eleven years, including Words And Music (1970), And So: On (1971), Land’s End (1974), El Mirage (1977), and Angel Heart (1982), while writing hits for other recording stars. Throughout the years, he continued to hone his performance skills, and earned distinguished reviews and praise following his appearances in top cabaret venues (The Algonquin’s famed Oak Room in New York, NY’s “Feinstein’s at The Regency,” San Francisco’s “Fairmont Hotel,” Melbourne’s “Continental,” “The National Hall” in Dublin, London’s, “Ronnie Scott’s,” and “The Cafe Royal”) as he presented material which encompassed a new maturity and sophistication for his first album in over a decade. Suspending Disbelief, (1993) produced by Linda Ronstadt and George Massenburg, received enormous critical acclaim, and led New York Times critic Stephen Holden to state that this album, “may very well be the songwriter’s perfect moment.” His recording effort, Ten Easy Pieces, (Guardian-EMI)—which won rave reviews—is a collection of the songwriter’s hits as he performs them the way they were originally written, and his solo recording, “Twilight of the Renegades,” (Sanctuary) was released in 2005. In 2007 Webb released his first live CD, “Live And At Large,” which is available through cdBaby and his latest recording effort, “Just Across The River,” (E-One Music) teams Webb with some notable artists such as Billy Joel, Mark Knopfler, Lucinda Williams, and Willie Nelson in duets of some of Webb’s best-known works. Webb was also one of the few artists asked to perform in 1995 at Carnegie Hall’s “Celebration of American Music” honoring Frank Sinatra, and, at Billy Joel’s personal request, one of several artists (including Marvin Hamlisch and Garth Brooks) who performed for Congress in 1997 as Joel was presented with ASCAP’s Founder’s Award. Jimmy Webb’s recent tours (Australia/Japan 2000, The U.K. Tours ’11, and Australia and New Zealand, 2005, and Australia again in June, 2011) were sell-outs. His New York performances – one along with legendary songwriter Paul Williams— earned the distinguished headline of “A Bright, Soaring Delivery For Wild Romantic Fantasies” from the esteemed New York Times. His three, 2009 performances at New York’s famed, “The Cutting Room,” were complete sellouts, and he continued to use the venue as his “New York home” throughout its existence. Over the years Jimmy Webb has also added his inimitable genius to a number of film and television projects. Beginning his scoring career in 1968, he wrote the title song and a midsummer hit (“Montage”) for the James Garner-Debbie Reynolds comedy, “How Sweet It Is!,” followed by an adventurous score for the 1971 classic Western, “Doc.” In 1973 he demonstrated his wit and musical breadth with a score for the provocative “Naked Ape,” followed by his music for “Voices,” in 1979. Webb provided a dazzling score for the highly successful animated film, “The Last Unicorn,” Germany’s second-highest grossing film in 1982, which also included his title song, “That’s All I’ve Got To Say,” later recorded by Art Garfunkel. That success was followed by the score for Cannon Film’s Vietnam sage, “The Hanoi Hilton.” Although he rarely collaborates, Webb and Carly Simon wrote the title track of her album, Film Noir and completed “A Dream Worth Keeping,” with Alan Silvestri for Twentieth Century’s 1992 release, “Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest,” recorded by Sheena Easton. His solo effort, “Christmas Will Return” was included in Disney’s smash hit, The Santa Clause, with Tim Allen. Jimmy Webb continues in his reign as one of the few masters of American music, leading one reviewer to comment, “There is something of a return to 1930’s glamour in Webb’s work, a suggestion of the great era of lush film scoring when velvet-sounding violins appeared seemingly out of nowhere and emotion erupted from the music itself.” Webb’s earlier television projects included the theme music and songs for specials with Ringo Starr, Olivia Newton-John, and Amy Grant, in addition to providing the theme songs and music for RollingStone Magazine’s Tenth Anniversary Special. He has also scored for Steven Spielberg’s “Amazing Stories,” Shelley Duvall’s “Faerie Tale Theatre,” MGM Television’s “Seven Brides For Seven Brothers,” and the television series “E/R.” Columbia Records released a Jimmy Webb cantata, “The Animals’ Christmas,” featuring Amy Grant, Art Garfunkel, and the London Symphony Orchestra, with songs from the album featured on Grant’s Christmas Special in 1986. Webb also scored the 1991 premiere episode of HBO’s “Tales From The Crypt,” as well as another episode of ‘Tales for the 1992 season. Webb was also commissioned by Oklahoma Events to compose a 16 minute piece celebrating the State’s Centennial, and “Centennial Suite” made its debut in 2007 with the Oklahoma Philharmonic. Clarifying himself as a romanticist, Webb’s use of vivid imagery simultaneously captures and involves his listeners’ emotions, which should come as no surprise to the songwriter who states, “I like words. I like the way they clash around together and bang up against each other, especially in songs.” In a progression of his celebrated talent as a lyricist, Webb continued in the 1990’s furthering his enormous range of interests by completing a best-selling book, Tunesmith: Inside The Art of Songwriting, a Hyperion ’98 release. Released in soft-cover in the fall of ’99, “Tunesmith” is still considered by many to be the “Bible of songwriting.” Warner’s, United Kingdom, released Archive (1993), featuring twenty tracks from earlier Webb recordings and PolyGram U.K. released Someone Left The Cake Out In The Rain, (1998) a compilation of the greatest Webb covers in January, 1998. Raven Records released a combination CD of the Richard Harris/Jimmy Webb recordings from A Tramp Shining and The Yard Went On Forever in their Richard Harris: The Webb Sessions. Jimmy also co-produced Carly Simon’s Film Noir album and contributed his vocals, orchestration and piano skills to the project which was filmed for an AMC documentary (which premiered in September of ’97). Rhino also released a 5-CD boxed set (limited edition) called “The Moon’s A Harsh Mistress,” which was an instant sell-out, and Warner, U.K. followed with “Archive & Live,” a 2-CD set in 2005. Webb also co-produced Carly Simon’s CD, “This Kind of Love,” for Starbuck’s “Hear Music (2008).Jimmy’s recording efforts with Glen Campbell have been reissued and extended on a Raven-import album entitled Reunited (2000), and his week-long performances with Glen at New York’s “Feinstein’s At The Regency” in June 2005 were sold out. In September, 2009, Jimmy and Glen reteamed with the Nashville Symphony for three nights of concerts in a special series, and are looking forward to performing together again on June 4th of this year. Jimmy Webb’s accomplishments as a composer, arranger, and producer demonstrate beyond question that he remains as important and vital a cultural figure today as he was over thirty years ago. Embraced by his peers, Webb has influenced and affected some of the finest musical talents of our time. Frank Sinatra declared “By The Time I Get To Phoenix” as “the greatest torch song ever written,” and said he enjoyed singing Jimmy Webb tunes because “he has been blessed with the emotions and artistic talent of the great lyricists.” The late Sammy Cahn commented, “I think one of the real, real geniuses is Jimmy Webb. His “MacArthur Park” is a major piece of work, major. I’d almost compare it to Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” in size and scope.” Michael Feinstein, who recorded Webb’s “Time Enough For Love,” for his 1993 album, Forever, and included another Webb track (“Wasn’t There A Moment”) on his Such Sweet Sorrow, says he’s “interested in the work of the great masters from any era, and certainly, Jimmy Webb is a master of this era, of today.” Feinstein also recorded an “all-Webb” album for 2002 and premiered the track, “These Are All Mine” at Carnegie Hall with Jimmy as his special guest in April, ’01. Billy Joel credits Jimmy as a major influence on his own foray into the music business. “When I was starting out as a songwriter,” says Joel, “I looked to Jimmy Webb as one of the most innovative and musically proficient songwriters of our generation.” His songs transcend their precedent-setting critical and commercial acclaim to achieve the level of true classics – a permanent part of the American musical landscape, the soundtrack of an era. In his book about songwriting, Webb states, “the paramount joy of the craft is that, however simply it is begun, it can take the songwriter on a lifelong voyage across many distant and wondrous musical seas.” For Jimmy Webb, that’s a spectacular series of events indeed.

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• Current Tours

Jimmy Webb performs at the Recital Centre in Melbourne on Tuesday 27 June 2017. Photo by Ros O'Gorman

Jimmy Webb Is Touring Australia With His Famous Aussie Friends

by Paul Cashmere on April 30, 2018

Jimmy Webb will return to Australia for two shows in August for shows with his friends, Jimmy Barnes, David Campbell, Kaye Ceberano, Ed Kuepper and Ian Moss.

Jimmy Webb last toured Australia in 2017 , stunning crowds with his original songs that are now part of pop culture.

Jimmy Webb setlist, Melbourne, 27 June 2017

Part 1 Highwayman (from Glen Campbell’s Highwayman, 1979 and The Highwaymen, 1984) Galveston (from Glen Campbell’s ‘Galveston, 1967) All I Know (from Art Garfunkel’s Angel Clare, 1972) Do What You Gotta Do (from Johnny Rivers, Rewind, 1967, Nina Simone, ‘Nuff Said, 1968) Up Up and Away (from The 5th Dimension, Up Yup & Away, 1967)

Part 2 By The Time I Get To Phoenix (from Glen Campbell’s ‘By The Time I Get To Phoenix, 1967) The Moon’s A Harsh Mistress (from Joe Cocker, I Can Stand A Little Rain, 1974 and Glen Campbell, Reunion, 1974) Just Like Always (from Glen Campbell Adios, 2017) Wichita Lineman (from Glen Campbell’s Wichita Lineman, 1968) Macarthur Park (from Richard Harris, A Tramp Shining, 1968)

Encore Adios (from Glen Campbell Adios, 2017)

About his return, Jimmy says, “Australia with its vast shorelines, ferry boats and natural wonders has always been my favourite place to play. Now to perform live with Australia’s most popular rock and pop stars – and orchestra – I am blown away. I am honoured, and we are going to pull out all of the stops for the audience!”

JIMMY WEBB & FRIENDS AUSTRALIAN TOUR 2018

Sunday 5th August State Theatre, Sydney

Thursday 9th August Hamer Hall, Melbourne

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Tagged as: 60s , 70s , David Campbell , Ed Kuepper , Ian Moss , Jimmy Barnes , Jimmy Webb , Kaye Ceberano , songwriter , USA

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