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JIMMY WEBB
’60S SONGMASTER
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Watching Jimmy Webb play "MacArthur Park" at Scullers a week ago Saturday, you’d have thought you were hearing a lousy cover of a great song. He dragged the tempo, skipped the first verse, missed the high notes by some distance, and cracked jokes at inappropriate points. You might have expected the composer to be miffed — except, of course, that Webb is the composer. He wrote that song during a late-’60s hot streak that also produced "Galveston," "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," and "Up, Up & Away," all when he was two years younger than Conor Oberst is now. Although bearing out his brilliance as a songwriter, the Scullers show made it clear why he’s never had a hit on his own: like his contemporary Burt Bacharach, Webb just isn’t a singer, and his songs call for more range than he’s got. What’s more, he’s long since moved away from the kind of inventive hit singles he wrote in the ’60s: on a long string of solo albums (some of which have just been reissued in a Rhino/Handmade box), he’s moved into a weightier kind of orchestral pop. At Scullers, he jokingly quoted a critic who compared him, unflatteringly but accurately, to Leonard Cohen. And he drew from that well, doing "The Moon’s a Harsh Mistress," a Cohenesque song about chasing the muse. But he also played many of his timeless ’60s standards, including the Glen Campbell hits "Wichita Lineman" and "Highwayman," songs that influenced modern alt-country more than anyone wants to admit. (Webb noted on stage that he and Campbell are about to do another album together.) Playing solo on piano, and sporting a youthful, long-haired look, he proved warmer and chattier than his mystery-man image would suggest. He talked at length not only about singers he’s worked with but about his recent marriage (his wife was sitting up front), even the laser eye surgery he’d just had. The offhand reminiscences, along with his mighty catalogue, were more than enough to make the show worthwhile. Indeed, when on the closing "Didn’t We" he demonstrated the vocal embellishments that Tony Bennett, Barbra Streisand, and Frank Sinatra brought to their respective versions, Webb was easily the worst singer I’ve ever been awed by.
BY BRETT MILANO
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