POP MUSIC
Pete Fornatale 1:28:32
beautiful Jimmy Webb alive version of the Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Jimmy our time is running away from us. I got a couple of more things I'd like to ask you about if we can. I mentioned earlier the notion of collaborations you generally don't like to collaborate in songwriting? Correct?
Jimmy Webb 1:28:55
Well, I have done it. I've just never never been very good at it. And, you know, I think that it's, it's the Pavlovian thing to some degree, if you've had a good experience and you've had a reward and you've had pat on the back. Oh, that was a lovely thing you did with Kenny Loggins are that was a lovely thing you did with Gerry Beckley or what a great thing was with Elvis Costello or whoever it may be. I've just never had that kind of echo response type of thing. And seem, I seem to be better off on my own. You know, a fellow Oklahoman Roger Miller, who was actually born about 12 miles from where I was born, we were born very close together. And Oklahoma said, you know, Picasso did co paint, you know, so, but, you know, I think that certain people were, are maybe more more suited for that kind of thing. And I go down to Nashville on part of the group, sometimes I'm drawn into a situation where I say, Sure, let's try it. I don't. It's a, you know, it's a test, it's a test. It's a test of, of moral fiber, to really see if you can sit in the same room with someone else and actually put yourself through that. I think I'm maybe a very, very, very, very, very shy person who really has difficulty airing out those things in front of other people. And that may be the problem that I have with it.
Pete Fornatale 1:30:41
Let me ask you about one time when you did do it, which was film noir.
Jimmy Webb 1:30:46
Oh, I thought that Carly Simon and I wrote a really fine song together. And fact they just took it and made it a part of her her grand anthology, I guess a four CD set. And that was one of the songs that they selected for it, which I was obviously flattered and honored that he also did the arrangement on that by the way.
Pete Fornatale 1:31:13
I discovered that late actually, I can't remember the reason why but I loved everything about it the package being black and white, the majority of material standards by the likes of people we were talking about earlier, and sort of the umbrella for it the thing that holds it all together is is the title song that you wrote for it is was that one on commission was that one
Jimmy Webb 1:31:40
well, she and I decided to write together. The truth is you should go to you should go to the album
Pete Fornatale 1:31:55
Which is exactly what we're going to do right now on mixed bag radio.
Pete Fornatale 1:32:01
That's Carly Simon and the title track from her album film noir, which she wrote with my guest today
Jimmy Webb 1:32:08
we detuned all the pianos on that album, we had the idea that we we that to truly be film noir ish and and to truly be black and white. That none of the pianos could actually be in that really Crystaline concert pitch. So they're all slightly varying degrees of detune. So and if you're not aware of it, you will be aware of it now that I've told you, but when you hear the album, it's more of an ambience after it. It gives it puts a little smoke in the air is what he does.
Pete Fornatale 1:32:45
Off the top of your head. Tell me three of your favorite movies.
Jimmy Webb 1:32:50
Oh, being there? Let's see. Being there. Shane would be another one. Lawrence of Arabia,
Pete Fornatale 1:33:10
three color films interesting. And three great films. Obviously. That last one is one you don't want to see on. VHS, you want to go? Yeah, you want to go to the theater. There's a handful like that, that just don't convert. Right
Jimmy Webb 1:33:30
but my very, but I think my very favorite is being there.
Pete Fornatale 1:33:35
What performance.
Jimmy Webb 1:33:36
I just loved always loved Peter Sellars anyway. But I can't think of a more evocative way for him to end his career on film. And in that. And I in many, many ways I look at the government, I look at the progress of politics in the world. And I think where, oh, where is Chauncey Gardiner, when we need him so desperately.
Pete Fornatale 1:34:03
Really brilliant, great. To stay in that character. And the beauty you remember what they did with the closing credits? That was what see where he just lost it? Because it was almost too much to keep that.
Jimmy Webb 1:34:21
Yeah. I had a friend who worked on that picture as an extra he actually played one of the President's Men, one of those. Yes, men who ran around with a clipboard, William F. Williams actually helps. He's on the credit. You can see him there. And he was he was he was a kind of an observer of Peter Sellers on that picture, and he said that he never left character that he was always Chauncey Gardner all the way through that movie from beginning that he never let down for For a moment, even in private,
Pete Fornatale 1:35:02
I can't remember who beat him for the Academy Award. I'm thinking it was Paul Newman, who would certainly be a sentimental favorite any year. He's nominated this year again.
Jimmy Webb 1:35:11
And of course, Shirley MacLaine was great in that picture, too.
Pete Fornatale 1:35:16
But I feel like Peter was robbed.
Jimmy Webb 1:35:21
he was a sweetheart. I mean, I go all the way back to you know, the goons and just loved him loved clothes, sell love to watch New Pussycat. Just
Pete Fornatale 1:35:36
all that stuff. I want to jump back to something we were talking about earlier. Waylon Jennings did record one of your song with three other modestly known gentlemen, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson. Johnny Cash. Yeah, that must have been a kick.
Jimmy Webb 1:35:56
Well, it was quite a phone call. I remember. The phone call came from my manager and said, you know, you've got a record on highwayman. I said, really? He said, Yeah. Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson. I send you You mean for records? I said, No, it's just one record. I thought, certainly, this this will be one of the few times in my life that I receive a phone call like this. And it was really Glenn's doing he played the song for them. And I was lucky in that it was a four verse song. Always had been a four verse song, and there were four of them. And that's really I think, how I got the gig. But as it turned out, each one of them singing a verse of this if you can imagine, was rather evocative. Would you like me to do it?