Inspired by Rosanne Cash’s The List, Steve Duchrow, the Arts Center’s Director of Performing Arts, decided to make his own list of essential songs of Americana. In the third of a series of blog entries he shares with his memories of music by songwriter Jimmy Webb. Want to make a list of your own? Please do! And feel free to share it with us in the comments.
Jimmy Webb definitely deserves to be mentioned on my list. I would nominate three songs: “Buy the Time I Get to Pheonix”, “Galveston”, and “Witchita Lineman”. Here’s why: My Mom had an old, white, General Electric clock radio that she kept on our worn, speckled, kitchen formica countertop in Waukesha, WI. She would set the alarm at night, and turn the volume of the music alarm all the way up. This forced her to wake because she had to rise and walk all the way to the kitchen and turn it off. Some days she overslept for a few minutes and it was musical heaven for me! So beautiful!
Almost 44 year later, the recollection is burnished in my memory. It is 1968. I was nine and Glen Campbell’s “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” is wafting through the house that lonely Sunday morning. I am vividly creating every lyric Jimmy Webb wrote in that song. I could see “the note I left hanging on her door.” And “She’ll laugh when she reads the part that says I’m leaving.” God! I could have laid there forever and listened to that song. I never wanted that song to be over.
Jimmy Webb gets in your head. He has a gift for melody and welds it with these memorable, haunting, crisp, snapshot-like, photographic images. I can see the footsteps on the beach in “Galveston” and the, desolate, unending landscape of telephone poles in “Wichita Lineman”. He’s unforgettable for me.
Watch Glenn Campbell perform ”Buy the time I get to Phoenix” here.
Watch Jimmy Webb talk about and perform “Galveston” here.
Watch Glenn Campbell perform “Wichita Lineman.”
Next week we’ll be taking a list break to focus on Steve’s memories of the first time he saw American Place Theatre but more on the Steve’s list is coming soon to a blog near you (specifically this blog). Rosanne Cash will appear at the Elgin Community College Arts Center on Saturday, October 8 to perform songs from her album The List.
