Jimmy Webb is a talented singer-songwriter who never had any hits of his own, but wrote many hit songs for others. In particular, Glen Campbell has covered many of his songs, and had big hits with some of them, such as the all-time classics "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," "Galveston," and "Wichita Lineman." In 1974, he even released an album consisting entirely of Jimmy Webb songs. In 1988, he released the album "Light Years," which included a couple more songs written by Webb. As part of the promotion for that album, Campbell and Webb appeared together on a Canadian radio show. Not only did they perform a bunch of Webb's songs together, they talked some about the songs as well. So that was more or less exactly like a Storytellers episode, except there was no studio audience and it took place about a decade earlier. The length of about 45 minutes was exactly the same for Storytellers episodes too.
It was rare for Campbell and Webb to perform together like this. So eventually, in 2012, an album of this radio show was released as an audio album, as well as a video. However, this album is very obscure. It took me months before I could even find a copy. So I decided to post it here to give it greater exposure.
Furthermore, I improved the album in two ways. Firstly, I added some songs that weren't on the official album. These come from the video of the same concert. In terms of music from that video, I didn't add much, just "Honey Come Back." It's really only a snippet that's less than a minute long, which probably explains why it didn't make the album. But I found several chunks of banter that were only on the video. One of these talked about the song "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," but then the song just barely started before it faded out. So I found a version of Campbell doing it in concert within a couple of years of this performance, and added it in.
The second big change I made is that the banter often was overdubbed over instrumental sections of the songs. Most of these were at the beginnings of songs, but occasionally, as in "MacArthur Park," they took place in the middle of the songs. I used the UVR5 audio editing program to get take these talking bits out of songs. But instead of trashing them, I generally put them as more banter before the songs.
I suspect there were more songs played, and especially more banter, but this is all I could find. Generally speaking, Campbell sang the lead vocals and played guitar while Webb played keyboards. On some songs, they were backed by a full band. On a couple, it was just Campbell and his acoustic guitar.
All in all, this is a really interesting album. Even if you're not a big fan of either Campbell or Webb as performers, you should hear this because virtually every song performed is a classic.
This album is 44 minutes long.
01 talk (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
02 By the Time I Get to Phoenix (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
03 talk (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
04 Light Years [Edit] (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
05 If These Walls Could Speak (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
06 talk (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
07 Galveston [Edit] (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
08 talk (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
09 Where's the Playground, Susie (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
10 talk (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
11 MacArthur Park [Edit] (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
12 talk (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
13 Wichita Lineman [Edit] (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
14 talk (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
15 The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress [Edit] (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
16 talk (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
17 Honey Come Back (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
18 talk (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
19 Sunshower (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
20 talk (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
21 Still Within the Sound of My Voice (Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb)
alternate:
https://pixeldrain.com/u/BeHRgDfG
The cover of the official "In Session" album looks very amateurish, so I ignored that. I took the "In Session" graphic at the top from a YouTube video of this concert. However, that video was too low-res for good photos of the duo. Instead, I found this photo. I don't know when or where it's from exactly, but their ages seem to be in the right ballpark. (Webb is at the keyboards and Campbell is standing with the microphone.)
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