![]() “Galvaston” is one of Lucinda’s favorite songs. I’m glad that it makes you feel that the artists belong with the material because in a lot cases, these artists are singing songs that are their personal favorite. There’s an actual history with each singer and the song. It seems like every artist is purposeful. When you first see it you think, Not another one of these celebrity albums!, but it really didn’t start out that way. I appreciate you using the word “family” because it really was not as contrived as it might seem on the surface. The album sounds very much like a family: you and the musicians and the vocalists. It’s been such a joy to spend some time with Just Across the River. On a recent spring afternoon, Jimmy Webb reached “across the table” (actually, the telephone) to remember how the boy from Elk City got to Nashville. There’s such an intimacy in both his singing and his storytelling that Just Across the River could be subtitled Just Across the Table, for that’s how close you feel to Jimmy Webb after speaking with him or listening to him harmonize with Michael McDonald. Talking about “Where Words End”, in particular, not only leads to a discussion about Johnny Rivers, but also his observations about the gift of silence, the media’s obsession with disaster, and his friendship with both Richard Harris and Harry Nilsson. His answers to questions are like colorful threads of life experiences that interlace into one tapestry. Jimmy Webb is as fascinating a conversationalist as he is a songwriter. It’s one of those songs that didn’t need any kind of orchestration. He actually came out to California and played on it. He took the story and wrote it in a really beautiful, poetic way. I just sat there and waited for the sunrise. “I went and sat on this mountain at a place in Big Sur in the middle of the night. “I told him the story about what I’d gone through when I lost my mother”, says Rivers, one of the earliest champions of Webb’s songwriting (see For the Love of Jimmy). He wrote the song especially for Johnny Rivers on his Shadows of the Moon (2009) album. In addition to classics like “Wichita Lineman” and “All I Know”, Webb also revisits his most recent composition, “Where Words End”. Of course, the multiple Grammy Award-winning songs Jimmy Webb has penned - “Up, Up and Away” (The 5th Dimension), “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” (Glen Campbell), “MacArthur Park” (Richard Harris), “Highwayman” (Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson) - constitute only a small portion of his deep catalog of songs, some of which had already been recast on his Ten Easy Pieces(1996) album that Fred Mollin also produced. Both Jimmy Webb and Fred Mollin exercised considerable care in curating Just Across the River. ![]() ![]() The album’s homespun quality brings each song back to its essential emotional elements, making Just Across the River a musical craftwork of the highest caliber. ![]() Billy Joel, Willie Nelson, Mark Knopfler, Lucinda Williams, and noted Jimmy Webb enthusiasts Glen Campbell and Linda Ronstadt were among the special guests who lent their voice to the album. Journeying solo on three songs, Webb partnered with many of his own peers and admirers on the remaining ten cuts. Inviting Vince Gill, with whom Webb had written “Oklahoma Rising” for the state’s centennial, to sing on “Oklahoma Nights” created a ripple effect of other artists expressing interest in the project. Producer Fred Mollin initially endeavored to keep the project a low-budget affair, ensconcing Webb at Sound Emporium in Nashville for a two-day recording session with the city’s finest musicians. Unlike the celebrity-as-brand methodology of other “duets” projects, Just Across the River not only reflects the personal histories that Jimmy Webb actually shares with each artist but also the unique affection that each artist has for Webb’s oeuvre. The man whose words and music have been interpreted by four generations of music icons has corralled ten legendary voices in pop and country to join him on revisiting some of his most cherished compositions. In fact, it is “Oklahoma Nights” that opens Just Across the River, a new release that could most likely become the singer-songwriter’s career-defining album. The quintessential American songwriter of his generation, Jimmy Webb is a native of Elk City in the 46th state of the United States. “Oklahoma Nights” is a very appropriate song to open a Jimmy Webb album. ![]()
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