As I mentioned in Volume One, Webb was on fire in the late 1960s, writing a handful of the best songs all time, by anybody. Unfortunately, by the start of the time period on this album, his hot streak had cooled. Virtually every song on Volume One was a big hit, while there are only a few hits here. That said, the songwriting quality is still very high. A few of the songs here are considered classics. For instance, both "The Moon's a Harsh Mistress" and "Highwayman" have been covered dozens of times, and "All I Know" was a big hit for Art Garfunkel.
I'm not sure what happened exactly, but I suppose Webb's songwriting style changed. Instead of writing overtly poppy hits, he began writing more confessional singer-songwriter stuff. The same thing happened to others around the same time. For instance, Carole King's songwriting style changed drastically from the 1960s to the 1970s. I could have included many more worthy songs here, but I wanted to keep the emphasis on the stuff with obvious popular appeal, so I generally only included hits or songs that I thought should have been hits.
The lack of massive success for Webb's own albums is curious. Certainly he had the requisite talent, both with his singing voice as well as songwriting chops. It seems to me that he didn't do the obvious things to be popular. For instance, by 1970, the year of his first solo album ("Words and Music"), he had written at least a dozen really big hits for others. But on that album, he included exactly none of them. That was a huge missed opportunity, in my opinion. After that, his albums were typically critically acclaimed but little noticed by the public. It didn't help that he did almost no touring whatsoever until the 1990s, and even since then only very intermittently. He also had a really big drug problem until the 1990s.
In any case, some of these songs were written before when they appear chronologically on this album. For instance, "P.F. Sloan" first appeared on that 1970 album I mentioned above but the version here is from 2012. "Highwayman" first appeared on one of his albums in 1977, but wasn't a hit by the Highwaymen (a country supergroup consisting of Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristofferson) until 1985. But other than that, these generally were the first versions of each song, or close to it.
If there are any great songs of his that I've failed to include, please let me know and I'll consider adding them.
This album is 49 minutes long.
01 Song Seller (Paul Revere & the Raiders)
02 Mixed Up Girl (Dusty Springfield)
03 Cheap Lovin' (Supremes)
04 All I Know (Art Garfunkel)
05 The Moon's a Harsh Mistress (Judy Collins)
06 Crying in My Sleep (Art Garfunkel)
07 Easy for You to Say (Linda Ronstadt)
08 Highwayman (Highwaymen)
09 I Keep It Hid (Linda Ronstadt)
10 If These Walls Could Speak (Shawn Colvin)
11 Gauguin (Judy Collins)
12 P.F. Sloan (Rumer)
13 Postcard from Paris (Glen Campbell)
https://www.upload.ee/files/17271155/COVRDJIMMYWBB1972-2013Vlum2_atse.zip.html
alternate:
https://pixeldrain.com/u/T8MqGQrP
I don't know the details on when and where the cover photo was taken. But clearly he's significantly older than in the photo for Volume One.
Thank you very much.
ReplyDeleteIf you're looking for more songwriters to feature in "Covered", how about Richard Thompson, Sandy Denny, Loudon Wainwright III?
ReplyDeleteI would consider Richard Thompson. But Denny mostly sang covers, not originals. And while Wainwright is a great songwriter, very few people have covered his songs. Someday I'll deal with him by posting his BBC material. I have tons of BBC stuff he did.
DeleteGlen Campbells version Of "Postcard From Paris" is from his last album "Adios" on which he sang four Jimmy Webb songs taken from Jimmy's 93 album "Suspending Disbelief" This is easily Webbs best album and shows that he could still write superb music well after his early streak of hits.
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