Yesterday over on Lloyd Cole's site someone posted this clip - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfrOUVqRmKk - of Cole doing "There for her" from the same Irish tv-show where Paddy sang with Jimmy Webb.

Lloyd's comment was:

"I was very excited to do this, but the highlight ended up being meeting Jimmy Webb who was in the studio waiting to film after me. The orchestra were pretty much out of tune and out of time and they didn't have the time to rehearse any more, we just had to go for it. If I look furious, and I know I often do when I'm not... well, this time it's because I was."

Guess he was on the same night as Paddy, then, or at least recorded their segments the same day. I must say with youtube's limited HiFi it sounds pretty OK to me, but I think Cole may have a point. The orchersta does seem to have rehearsed "Highwayman" more.

Wonder what Paddy thought of the "orchestral manoeuvres in the Dub(lin)"?

The Jimmy Webb and Paddy McAloon YouTube duo clip of "Highwayman" . at lest for me , is one of the best performances .
A few weeks ago I had the good fortune to see Jimmy Webb perform in Chatham, New Jersey. Inside a huge church with a crowd of about 400 people. I have seen him two times before but this time was the best I have heard him play the piano and his singing was just great.
Also, on Feb. 16th he will be at the Cutting Room again in NY. I'm going to attempt the 4 hour drive up there . The shows there are always special and a celeb is always present. The last show , Artie Garfunkel was there and when Jimmy was Singing his hit song "All I know", he tried to persuade Art to come up on the stage and sing it with him but Art just kept shaking his head, no. It would have been nice to see him and Art sing the song together.
After the show , I do try so hard to get up there to meet Mr. Webb but there is always a crowd around him. I just wanted two things, of course, an autograph but I also want to ask him what it was like working and performing with Paddy. It certainly would make some kind of interesting news here, so, I'll keep trying.

I do agree with you, Lloyd Cole sounds OK and the orchestra doesn't seem all that bad . Then again, Cole would certainly know what sounds good and what sounds out of tune than I do.

I totally agree - their version of "HIghwayman" is superb (and even though I think the Higwaymen's - Cash etc - verison is OK too, I believe that the song gains from Paddy's soft voice. It gives the song a believable "everyman feel", and strips it of the machismo).

Langley, pure freaking lame genius :lol:

Thanks :) I thought I almost got a The Sun-headline quality into that (even if it was 10 times to long a sentence for them).

What I forgot to say about Cole earlier was that "There for Here" had strings arranged and led by Paul Buckmeister on the LP, so I guess it was quite hard for an unrehearsed tv orchestra to fill the shoes.

Isn't it possible that in our younger years- not excluding childhood- human beings are like fresh rolls of film taken from sealed canisters, unfogged, and unexposed? And if that is true then surely it is intensity of experience that marks us with knowledge and intuition, not longevity and repetition.
It seems to me, that one of the battles of aging is to maintain a passion, a sensitivity to our feelings as well to the vulnerability of the world around us. Without being able to expose ourselves to pain- to breakdown and cry if need be- we don't have what we need to be songwriters or even human beings. The reverse is true. Without recognizing
the good things life has to offer- the priceless gift of the distant laughter of children- we become sour pedants. It matters little the grave importance of what we have to say. No one wants to hear our dreary self-pitying voice.
When I'm stale- I find that "experience" is exactly what I need. Then It is time for a change of venue. It is out of the world that I find the means to reload with a fresh roll of film...... J. Webb.

This is what attracts me to Prefab Sprout and Paddy McAloon songwriting.

wise words.for me living life is a skill that we have to work at.having empathy and understanding as well as seeing the joy in simple things make us not only better people but happier as well.on the subject of JW the lyrics and music to 'the highwayman' really moved me.is it about America? or the human race working together to archive great things? or the solitary hero?lyrics that just stay a little bit from ones grasp.but the feelings they express to me is of the passing of time and love for the human race.and the coda just gets me every time.brilliant

Well said ,rock.
JW only gives two versions on the "Highwayman" song. One serious and usually in print . The other is spoken to the audience at his show before he sings the song.
He says , in the middle of the night while asleep he woke up in a cold sweat. He got out of bed and was walking by his piano and sat down . Then he began to tap out some chords and the melody and words to Highwayman began to pour out.
This reminds me of Paddy and the song "We let The Stars Go". He had a few minutes before it was time to go to the Jackson show so he sat down at the piano and banged a few chords and thought , I never heard this before and wrote the complete song then noticing that he missed the Michael Jackson show.
JW's other version is he once said to the late Waylon Jennings, who recorded the song with Cash, Kristofferson and Nelson, that the song made a big stir in country and he got a Grammy for that song. Waylon quipped, which country?

The author really never gives a direct answer to his personal feelings. Nor do I really have the right to know. Like you . I too can only propose my own personal feelings. Mine do lean more towards the spiritual.

Here is an interview with Jimmy Webb. He touches on somethings that have been discussed on various topics in here.


http://www.songwriteruniverse.com/jimmywebb123.htm

just bought a copy of 'tunesmith'. has anyone else read it? also saw a c.d. of the songs JW wrote for Richard Harris.i was going to get it but Harris's voice put me off,am i missing out on some great songs?i love 'El Mirage' theres a great mood instrumental on it that i love.

Well rock for one thing, we all know is that Richard Harris was a charismatic and hell raiser. He was determined to be the best and became the best . After "Camelot", the critic reviews proclaimed him as "a singer of great feeling", he took it to mean he was a good singer. This gave him the confidence enough to try the pop scene.
His path met up with Webb, mostly at a bar or party, and Harris invited him to stay with him in Ireland in the home where Harris grew up. Webb slept in the bed that Harris was conceived.
In 1968 Harris was played on the radio as much as the Beatles and for awhile he was the biggest actor/ musician more so than Frank Sinatra.
I guess Richard Harris singing is now considered act base singing. In other words he acted the songs while singing , he made Webb's use of symbolism believable. They were a unique combo. Webb was the genius and Harris the messenger. Like many of the bands and songwriters of that era , Jimmy Webb fused reality with perception to form an original thought.
I have heard Jimmy Webb sing 'MacArthur Park" live four times and each time he sang and played it in a different way. Each time was quite beautiful. But Richard Harris puts the song somewhere way beyond the beauty of Webb himself.
So, if you have an extra $8 bucks plus shipping you can buy both albums "A tramp Shinning" and "The Yard Went On Forever" on a used copy. It's worth a listen to a few times a year. You'll appreciate him more.

thanks.i saw a cheap 'best of' at my local record shop.it was only £3 so i don't know why i was being so picky.mind you it had a picture of RH's face on the cover so that may be the reason :lol:

"El Mirage" was completely produced by George Martin ( Beatle fame producer). Jimmy Webb , of course , put all the arrangements in Martin's hands . Normally Webb would do his solo producing himself. This album was JW's best effort but the album didn't chart as high as they hoped. It has the song's "The Highwayman" and "The Moon's a Harsh Mistress" on it . The instrumental song that you were talking about ,rock , is called "Skylark" and is a gem.
If you ever get a chance , find JW song " Land's End/ Asleep on the Wind" a great instrumental/ sing song.

One thing though about Richard Harris , he did have a generous heart. He bought Jimmy Webb a Rolls Royce when The song "MacArthur Park" made it to the #2 spot on the charts.

thanks,will do.i was just being a bit silly with my lame joke about RH.the guy's great.i saw the JW monologue about sleeping in the bed that RH was conceived in.great stuff.I've started reading 'tunesmith'. it's pretty dense in places,but worth the effort i think.

In the future ,rock, you got to be more respectful toward Richard Harris, Please.
Understand.


http://youtube.com/watch?v=qv2UcxJwS3A

:lol:

As per in MOJO Mag, 2000, the following songs are Jimmy Webb's top 10 all time favorites:

I Can't Make You Love Me- Mike Reid & Allen Shamblin
People- Jule Styne & Bob Merrill
Separate Lives- Stephen Bishop
And So It Goes- Billy Joel
Walkin Memphis- Marc Cohen
A Case Of You- Joni Mitchell
Accidently Like A Martyr- Warren Zevon
Fire & Rain- James Taylor
Not A Day Goes By- Stephen Sondheim
Opening Farewell- Jackson Brown

There are some real good movers in there. My favorite on his list is "Fire & Rain"

does anyone like "goodnight saigon"by BJ? i think a modern example of a great song is "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley.

I can't argue with someone who truly knows their music !


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd2B6SjMh_w


somehow I keep seeing a vagina in those ink spots. I think I'm crazy. :unsure:

"Goodnight Saigon" is one of Billy Joel's most under rated songs. I think the media just didn't want to promote it as much , since America lost that war. Billy Joel makes hero's out of Vietnam vets. It's a shame that most have been and still are being treated unfairly, as if, that war never existed. :(
The song was released in 1983 and charted #59 in USA, charted #29 in UK.

Shawn Colvin does a version of 'Crazy' that's great. http://www.myspace.com/shawncolvinmusic. i think it was garbarek1078 who put up a post about her on here.

Nice :D ,

I'm not a real big Cher fan but I think she does pretty well with this Jimmy Webb tune.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy4yNCfkmWs&feature=related

This is one of my all time Jimmy Webb songs. This song came out in the early 70's and has that post Beatles song structure. The song is called "One Lady"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGbXpX-iC9M

And I always thought it could be a potential hit song. Back then I wrote a letter to Paradise Records ( no e-mail or computers back then) addressed to Leon Russell
suggesting that he do a version of "One Lady". Six months later. to my surprise,
His fan club editor wrote me a letter saying that Leon came out with a new album
and thanked me for the suggestion. The album called 'Willo' The Wisp' came out in '75
and on it was Leon's first hit, 'Lady Blue'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY-jPpq3vTo

But I also wrote a letter to Greg Allman asking him to do a version of 'One Lady'. I
never heard a reply back. Shortly after ,The Allman Brothers came out with
"Sweet Melissa"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uFD7JqkOR4

cheers Paul, I've enjoyed the songs you have posted.on the subject of Leon Russell,my favorite from him is 'A Song for You'.and my favorite version is by Donny Hathaway.
a song for you-donny hathaway donny hathaway was a great songwriter in his own right.His'extensions of a man' is a great album,containing the classic 'Someday We'll All Be Free'.Donny Hathaway someday we'll all be free :)

Yep rock, Donny Hathaway , That was when soul was just soul. :)

jimmy webb-words and music

short review in this months Crawdaddy! B)

Good heads up , rock. "Words & Music" is my favorite JW album. :)

A most recent radio interview with Jimmy Webb about a brief outline on his life and the art of songwriting can be found here.

http://www.iwritethesongs.com/shows/this_weeks_show.cfm

cheers paul,this is great.JW has a great sense of humour,hopefully i will catch him live
when he plays in the u.k again-I just picked up "10 easy pieces"-awesome :)

Yep, 10 easy reminds me ,in a way, of Paddy's acoustics of SMcQ . Striped down, personal yet marketable.

That was one of my thoughts also.Paddy definitely sees JW as a musical role model.
Jimmy Nail is like a Richard Harris figure in the PM Songbook.
I read a interview from PM,he was talking about JW ,and it was something along the line of PM couldn't understand why JW hit the road after writing all the songs for Glen Cambell,etc and wanting to be a star in his own right.
BTW, The 5th Dimention albums that JW produced seem to be having a bit of a resurgence in popularity on the underground soul scene in the U.K ,good music always seems to get a second chance!

It's a complex issue. At the age of 19, JW was already rich , famous and a string of hits and Grammy awards. At the end of the 60's. Glen Campbell turned to TV with his "Good Time Hour" show , Richard Harris went into some deeper corner of the music world with his Jonathan Seagull something or other and the 5th were pounding out hits from other song writers.
At the age of 24, I believe. JW was at crossroads. There just was not enough singers out there to write songs for. With the break up of the Beatles there was a cutting edge of a surge of the singer/songwriter. He was offered a deal to do Las Vegas. His name in bold bright lights, sit at a piano in a center stage and lip- synic songs as the stage slowly rotated around. He'd be a center piece like a Don Ho or Wayne Newton, also earning twice the amount of money. He turned it all down. This to him at the time songwriting was not what it was and still all about. There was something too plastic about it and he was sort of in a rebellious stage , so , he struck it out on his own with the shoe string budge album called "Words and Music". His face largely plastered on the front jacket cover . He was no longer going to have a small line on the back of some other artists album, words and music by Jimmy Webb. The album was a hodgepodge of different reality themes, like politics (Nixon), weed, sex, deep regrets, critics and a tribute to a media bashing scapegoat, P F Sloan ( wrote the song Eve of Destruction), and Webb singing "I want to be a rock n roll Christian", perhaps the primitive start of the multi-million dollar contemporary religious music genera of today. In a way it reminds me of PM's "Cars and girls". Do you set a paradigm of the plastic world of tinsel town or do you perceive a sense of reality around you based on your core principles and start from scratch.

But whatever the reasons I most certainly can tell you that I'm most likely wrong
about this.

All new interview of Jimmy Webb on youtube in 6 parts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrecaTZwHUU&feature=related

You can scroll down to all the parts of the interview on the right side. I like this part the best.

I believe this was in 1970, so lets not take the "grandfather of christian rock" title away from Larry Norman, who released his first solo LP in -69 (and two albums with People! before that, one containing a US hit with a cover of the Zombies (who later went on to cover the Sprouts :))

LN recently died, but a new album by him with Frank Black and the singer from Modest Mouse with covers of Lee Hazelwood songs will be released soon!

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news...nd-larry-norman

Here's a LN sampler for ya (and me, since I've always been aware of him, but never had any of his stuff):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7a54bASQdg

I always thought of Larry Norman as being Paul Williams taller brother :huh:
Interesting JW interview,when was it filmed?It must of been a few years ago,as JW seems a lot healthier these days.Un-edited interviews tend to be unfair on the subject
but JW holds his own!

:) (Well, in fact he is Black Francis-guitarist Charles NormaL's older brother).

But look at this, he also was a guy that beats Paddy when it comes to "lost albums"!!

http://www.larrynorman.uk.com/mystery.htm

Thanks Langley for the intro to Larry Norman. At the time in 1970 I was unaware of Larry. Today I admire him for his courageous efforts of pissing against the wind by bucking the traditions of two concrete systems. The religious people saw Larry as a flawed evangelist. The rockers saw Larry as an encroachment on their turf, desiring to be isolated from the integration of anything traditional. Rockers wanted no part of them so they labeled them "Jesus Freaks".
Although, at that time I was like a guy stuck square in the middle of a bridge. On one end was the traditional religion that my parents and school ingrained in me and on the other end was this new movement known as "Jesus Freaks". I was drawn to neither.
I saw the Jesus Freaks as people who were lazy. An excuse for them to smell bad and not have a wardrobe consistent with the majority, hiding their excuse for being unsocial
and being closed within by smoking pot. However, many of them were quite intelligent people, I can remember while studying for a test in a college lounge the Freaks surrounded me and asked me if I was "saved". They went into their forceful factual invigorating preaching and I told them to leave me alone and that they should go in the lab room and use their intelligence to try and cure cancer or find something that is energy saving and cost effective or something like that. They were relentless people and I think if they were around today , Christianity might welcome and embrace them but this will never happen because they won't even integrate today's Contemporary Religious Music which is considerably mild compared to Larry Norman,
and they wonder why there is not enough young adults in the churches today.
Pleeeeese , give me a break !

I'd never heard of the guy, and as far as I know, I've never listened to anything he ever recorded. But that list of un-released albums makes for absolutely spell-binding reading. It's spectacular, a monument to the futility of human endeavor. Thanks, LP!

Btw, LN:s probably most famous song was "Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music" from the mid 70's. Makes one wonder if there's any chance a certain young Paddy (in religious school) was inspired two write PS second single as an answer that..

There was a Rev. Rowland Hill a pastor of Surrey Chapel in London. He preached in 1844 that "The devil SHOULD NOT have all the best tunes". In 1844 the Churches of England had fallen in both quantity and quality. His message was simple. A call for Christians to write and compose and produce quality Christian songs.
It seems to me that Paddy's answer to Rev. Hill was 'The Devil Has All The Best Tunes".
I never heard the song nor do I know the lyrics but the title seems to be associated with this part of history.
Larry Norman took a lot of heat for his song "Why should the devil have all the Good Songs?." It was called wicked, perverted, stupid and irreverent, even compared to Joey Goebbels propaganda statement "Tell the the biggest most outrageous lie; tell it often enough; tell it loudly enough-and people will believe it ".
Larry Norman's answer to this was that people like Marylin Manson and Ozzie and others were singing irreverent quality music and lyrics that they should be busting on instead of him.