A Songwriter’s Songwriter : Jimmy Webb, whom many regard as one of the most gifted composers of our time, keeps busy with a new album and local gigs

Jimmy Webb was a pop music Wunderkind at such an early age that it’s a bit surprising to discover he just turned 46. Logically, that makes him a legitimate boomer--a prime name in the generation that made rock music a corporate success.

But Webb, who opens a weeklong run at the Hollywood Roosevelt Cinegrill on Tuesday, was never quite accepted by the ‘60s and ‘70s knee-jerk definers of rock excellence.

After all, hadn’t string sections been used in many recordings of his songs (notably so in his own orchestration of “MacArthur Park”)? Wasn’t he a self-identified romanticist? And, as if to delineate his unsuitability for inclusion in the new rock pantheon, hadn’t that voice of the establishment, Time magazine (in 1968), praised his “gift for strong, varied rhythms, inventive structures, and rich, sometimes surprising harmonies”?

“I guess it was a little hard for me to understand, at the time,” he said last week from his New York City studio. “I mean I really love rock ‘n’ roll. Probably my favorite band always has been the Rolling Stones, and one of my favorite albums is ‘Sticky Fingers.’

“For my own records, I’ve always preferred a more generic kind of rock ‘n’ roll sound, mainly because I think it fits my voice better. I guess you’d describe my sound as a kind of rockabilly, West Texas voice--which makes sense, since that’s where I was raised.

“The truth is,” continued Webb, “that I’ve never really abandoned the root influences I experienced as a kid. I mean, I’ve been accused of being Mantovani because I used strings when I first started out. But I’m no Mantovani. I really tried to use them creatively, I tried to use them in rock modes--not as cliched orchestral passages. And I still do.”

It seems likely, however, that the string orchestra issue was nothing more than a convenient means to waylay Webb’s music. Such authentic rock heroes as Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly and the Beatles (to name only a few) had preceded Webb with the use of back-up orchestras. The real problem, perhaps, lay in his connection with the mainstream of American songwriting rather than the emerging ‘60s rock styles. Linda Ronstadt said it best when she described Webb as a talent who “equals George and Ira Gershwin and Irving Berlin in terms of imagination and craft.”

“It’s very difficult,” explained Webb, “for me to change that part of me that says, ‘That sounds good; that sounds interesting.’ For me to make the decision to not write something that sounds good to me because it ‘ain’t rock ‘n’ roll’ is impossible. That’s the leap I can’t make.”

Webb’s decision to follow his own path resulted in an astonishing amount of early success. By the time he was 25, he had composed “Up, Up and Away,” “MacArthur Park,” “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” “Wichita Lineman,” “The Worst Thing That Could Happen” and “Galveston.”

And that was only the beginning. In the next two decades, he managed to release six albums of his own, write hit songs for Ronstadt, Art Garfunkel, Kris Kristofferson and Joe Cocker, work on several films and Broadway musicals, and score music for television shows ranging from Ringo Starr and Amy Grant variety specials to incidental music for “Tales From the Crypt.”

Praise for Webb’s skill has come from all areas of the music business. Frank Sinatra has described “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” as “the greatest torch song ever written,” adding that “Webb has been blessed with the emotions and artistic talent of the great lyricists.”

Billy Joel agrees. “When I was starting out as a songwriter,” he says, “I looked to Jimmy Webb as one of the most innovative and musically proficient songwriters of our generation.”

Singer-pianist Michael Feinstein, who includes a new Webb song, “Time Enough for Love” as the lead item on a forthcoming album, identifies Webb as “a master of this era, of today.”

At the moment, Webb’s ever-overflowing plate is dominated by two main course items--live performing and a new recording. The Cinegrill booking--his third at the venue--will be dealt with in Webb’s typically pragmatic manner.

“I just have to collect myself for each job,” he said. “When I have a performance coming up, I pretty much get focused in on it a week or two ahead of time. Otherwise, if I didn’t concentrate, if I looked at the whole mass of what needs to be done, I’d be intimidated. It’s like climbing Mt. Everest. If you look at the whole mountain, you’ll say, ‘I’ll never get up there.’ But if you start by crawling over the first boulder, and reduce it to its smallest elements, and if you’re tenacious enough, you’ll eventually get there.”

Is Webb bothered--as many singers and songwriters sometimes are--by the need to produce an and-then-I-wrote medley at each of his live performances?

“Yes and no,” he replied, after a moment of careful consideration. “One thing’s for sure: I just can’t stay in touch with a song at all if I have to do it--in many cases--the way somebody else did it, which may not have been the way I wrote it in the first place.

“For me, my songs change. Sometimes I change the words. Hey, what the hell, it’s just one performance. Quite often, years after I’ve written a song, I realize it has the wrong word in some spot, and so I change it. I change the tempo, and I definitely change the chords around all the time.

“Some people think I never play anything the same way twice. And I have fans who come up to meet me and gently complain about why I don’t do something the way I did it on the record. But I just can’t do it. After you’ve played something a thousand times, if you’re going to give the audience anything, you’ve got to feel something first. And I can’t feel anything when I’m in robot mode. I have to get the song to a place where it starts meaning something to me again. And then I give to them.”

Webb’s in-the-works recording--his first new album in a decade--will be produced by Ronstadt.

“When I started gathering material,” he explained, “I thought, ‘Well, Linda and I had a great time working together on “Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind” album.’ And she’s kind of like my best pal, anyway. As far as the contemplation of the artistic process, she’s the one I would go to to ask my questions, to say ‘How do you think I should approach this?’ or ‘How should I do that?’ I just find her to be an instinctive natural producer--with tremendous energy and absolutely no fear.”

The fear, as it turned out, was in Webb’s own mind. Despite their friendship, the prospect of asking Ronstadt to produce his album terrified him, he said.

And yet: “When I finally worked up my courage to phone and ask her, she was more than enthusiastic. She was immediately off like a rocket, talking about, ‘Where would we do it? When would we do it? Would I do this song, and that song?’ Once I asked her to do it, it was under way instantly. That’s Linda. That’s her style.”

Current plans call for the recording to be released in 1993 on an as-yet-unnamed major label. Webb is looking through his catalogue of songs, thinking of new ones, and gradually moving toward an overall perspective for the album. Among the enticing prospects is the distinct likelihood that there will be several Webb-Ronstadt duets.

“We’re approaching it on a case-by-case basis,” explained Webb. “It won’t be arbitrary. It won’t be, ‘Well, we’re going to stick Linda on this album.’ It’ll be, ‘Hey, here’s a song that’s right for Linda to sing with me.’ And I think we already have a couple of good possibilities.”

An equally intriguing possibility is the potential inclusion of one or two numbers that reach beyond the range of Webb’s familiar romanticism.

“Contrary to popular belief,” he said, “I’ve always been interested in social issues and tried to deal with them in my songs. It’s easy to think of me as a middle-of-the-road writer with no political beliefs and no particular social orientation. The reason, I guess, is because a lot of the songs with those qualities have never been recorded.

“I wrote a song recently called ‘Winners Tell Jokes’ which is about the selling of America--about how America became a bargain for anybody with enough money to chip off a piece. It’s based on an old Southern expression that goes, ‘Winners tell jokes, and losers say, “Deal.” ’ I’d like to see it on my album. But we’ll see. I haven’t demo’ed it yet or anything. Linda’s the producer, but I’ll lobby with her for at least one piece of material like that.”

Webb has also been thinking lately about “MacArthur Park,” a song that for a long time he did not enjoy performing.

“One of the reasons it was so difficult for me,” he said, “is that it’s so well-known, and it was so successful, and it’s terrible when a song becomes a parody of itself. But I still felt I had to do it because, my God, it’s probably the most famous song I ever wrote, and people will be disappointed if I don’t.”

He continued with a laugh, “One night at the Bottom Line in New York City, I actually gave ‘MacArthur Park’ a Viking funeral. I told the audience I was never going to play it again. I had a great band--Larry Coryell on guitar, all these great guys--we had rehearsed it for a couple of weeks, and we had this dynamite version. And I said, ‘This is it, the last time I’m going to play it.’

“Well, never say never. I think that lasted about two weeks. If that was a funeral, there was definitely a resurrection.”

Webb is now toying with the idea of a kind of “MacArthur Park” sequel--a 20-years-later look at the much-altered Los Angeles greensward.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about the song,” he said, “and thinking about going back down there for some inspiration. Because the park has changed so much since I first wrote that song, and there’s something fascinating about that.

“I talked to Richard Harris recently about doing another record with him in the not-too-distant future. And including something inspired by MacArthur Park as it is today is something that I would have to think about very seriously--about some kind of revisitation, not in the same musical context, and certainly not with the same title. It could be very interesting.”

Heading up the slope toward his own personal half-century, Webb has matured from a teen-age prodigy into a mature professional who works hard to balance his creative ideas with the craft demands of his art.

“I can’t live in one musical box,” he said. “Songwriting, performing, producing, orchestration, conducting, scoring--these things are very important parts of my life.

“I think I’ve changed a lot since those high-flying early days. There was definitely a time--in my early 20s--when I wasn’t very professional. I did what I wanted. And if somebody asked me to do something I didn’t want to do--no matter how much it inconvenienced them or anybody else--I would walk.

“After a while, that became something that bothered me about myself enough that I set out to turn it into its opposite--to be as reliable, as professional as possible.

“And that’s a very important concept,” concluded Webb. “Because ultimately, I make my living writing music. That’s what I do.”