For the American football player, see Jimmy Webb (American football).
[>>]

Source: Wikipedia

For the American football player, see Jimmy Webb (American football).

Jimmy Webb (born August 15, 1946) is an American songwriter, composer, and singer. He has written numerous platinum-selling classics, including "Up, Up and Away", "By the Time I Get to Phoenix", "Wichita Lineman", "Galveston", "The Worst That Could Happen", "All I Know", and "MacArthur Park". His songs have been performed by many popular contemporary singers, including Glen Campbell, The 5th Dimension, Thelma Houston, The Supremes, Richard Harris, Johnny Maestro, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Isaac Hayes, Art Garfunkel, Amy Grant, America, Linda Ronstadt, R.E.M., Michael Feinstein, Donna Summer, Barbra Streisand, and Carly Simon. According to BMI, his song "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" was the third most performed song in the fifty years between 1940 and 1990. Webb is the only artist ever to have received Grammy Awards for music, lyrics, and orchestration.

Early life [edit]
Jimmy Layne Webb was born August 15, 1946 in Elk City, Oklahoma. His father, Robert Lee Webb, was a Baptist minister and former member of the United States Marine Corps who presided over rural churches in southwestern Oklahoma and West Texas. With his mother's encouragement, Webb learned piano and organ, and by the age of 12 was playing in the choir of his father's churches, accompanied by his father on guitar and his mother on accordion. Webb grew up in a conservative religious home where his father restricted radio listening to country music and white gospel music.
During the late 1950s, Webb started writing songs, influenced by the church music he played and also by some of the new music he heard, including Elvis Presley. In 1961, at the age of 14, he bought his first record, "Turn Around, Look at Me" by Glen Campbell. Webb was drawn to the singer's distinctive voice.
In 1964, Webb and his family moved to Southern California, where he attended San Bernardino Valley College studying music. Following the death of his mother in 1965, his father made plans to return to Oklahoma. Webb decided to stay in California to continue his music studies and to pursue a career as a songwriter in Los Angeles. Webb would later recall his father warning him about his musical aspirations, saying, "This songwriting thing is going to break your heart." Seeing that his son was determined, however, he gave him $40, saying, "It's not much, but it's all I have."
[<<]

This text is based on a article from the open encyclopedia Wikipedia and stands under GNU license for free documentation. On Wikipedia there is List of the authors Available. Image: Michaeldemartin