Jimmy Webb

A legendary American songwriter who penned hits for Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra and Nina Simone, Jimmy Webb went on to enjoy an acclaimed 40-year solo career in his own right, as well as writing musicals, film scores and television jingles. The son of a Baptist minister, Webb (real name James Layne) grew up in rural Oklahoma playing piano in his father's churches, but moved to Los Angeles to study and pursue a music career in the mid-1960s. His first published songs were recorded by Motown artists, including The Supremes, before he made his name when Johnny Rivers' group 5th Dimension turned his track Up, Up And Away into a huge hit that claimed Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Song of the Year in 1968. Webb's flowery, psychedelic pop effort Macarthur Park - noted for its bizarre lyrics and references to leaving cakes out in the rain - became a Number 4 hit for Irish actor Richard Harris in the UK, and was later turned into a disco anthem and a US Number 1 by Donna Summer. Yet it was country crooner Glen Campbell who did most to popularise his work with classic renditions of Wichita Lineman, Galveston, Honey Come Back and By The Time I Get To Phoenix (dubbed "the greatest torch song ever" by Sinatra). Though Webb's own albums Words And Music (1970), Land's End (1974) and El Mirage (1977) failed to make much commercial impact, he was recognised alongside Leonard Cohen, Burt Bacharach and Bob Dylan as one of the great American songwriters of the era by critics. He subsequently went on to collaborate with Carly Simon, Mark Knopfler, Linda Ronstadt and his sons' band The Webb Brothers and released his thirteenth studio album Still Within The Sound Of My Voice in 2013.