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Glen Campbell and Jimmy Webb

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Dee
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Re: Glen Campbell and Jimmy Webb

Post by Dee »

Continuing JW’s wart and penny story as I remember it:
So, Jimmy had paused after telling us the first half of his story about his grandfather’s cure for warts.
One person from our small group then rushed him with questions that were no doubt on the minds of all 4 of us, most definitely mine: how can this be? How can a new penny cure a person’s wart? How does this work?
Except that she asked these questions more like: How can this be! How can a penny cure a person’s wart! How does this work!
Jimmy just leaned back in his chair and smiled at us, not saying anything.
For a moment there, I felt we were going to be “short-changed” (lol), by not being offered an explanation for the cure!
But Jimmy did resume his story, revealing to us how he believed this cure worked.
I won’t reveal the ending to Jimmy’s story. It is his story to tell in its entirety.
It must have been extremely difficult, to say the least, for Jimmy to share stories about his father at his first public concert / performance after the death of his Dad about 2 months ago. Thank you, Rob, for posting that Jimmy was able to continue on with this traditional part of his show. (Your description of the venue was fun to read…so glad you were there to enjoy your past memories of it as well as the venue's ambiance during those two special evenings with JW.)

A potential answer to the Rand & McNally question: Maybe Jimmy was joking: it had been some time since he had studied the Atlas or geography in school, and oh boy Glen, it was a challenge to quickly come up with a city name (in other words, another “city song”) as a follow-up to his and Glen’s successful “Phoenix”?

Maybe other fans would know the answers to the other questions Mike listed below?


robduloc
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Re: Glen Campbell and Jimmy Webb

Post by robduloc »

I'm not too sure, but I have a theory, in the old days a lot of warts were the result of the alkaline in Boraxo Soap!


robduloc
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Re: Glen Campbell and Jimmy Webb

Post by robduloc »

Thank you Mike, it really was important for me to learn if there were any books or mementos that may have been passed down to you either through a brother or sister or cousin, especially since England always paid extra care and attention how a book is bound.

When I met Jimmy Webb I gave him two books.

And I'm not sure if I have mentioned this before, but I have never watched or seen an episode of Sienfeld, Frasier or The Family Guy, although one of the last things our family watched was a documentary special dedicated to The Carter Family.

It does my heart well to know how many times that you have seen Glen Campbell!


Mike Joyce
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Re: Glen Campbell and Jimmy Webb

Post by Mike Joyce »

Hi robduloc,
My only stories about Seattle are that I have watched Frasier on TV, which as you will know is set in Seattle.
I live in Birmingham, England where they still dance to waltzes. LOL
As I have mentioned before,Glen was good to the UK fans and came over most years to do a tour. I was lucky to see Glen every time he came over in the 1980s onwards
As regards dancing to Up, up and away. I think the Rumba would suit it well given the opening rhythm. I am not sure the short skirt would suit me, given my hairy legs. There's an image that will take a long time to get out of my head. :shock:
You know, I don't recall my parents reading to me at all as a child. However the teachers' at school always finished the day with a story.I used to go to the local library as I got older but I tended to read factual books about the life of John F Kennedy and quite a few about the Assassination conspiracies. I used to read a lot on the bus to work and back.
I still read books on and off lately I have read books regarding time travel which I really enjoyed. One book was based on the programme 11.22.63 which was very popular here awhile ago.
Dee, as regards the song, I am going to call it "The wart that could happen" :D


robduloc
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Re: Glen Campbell and Jimmy Webb

Post by robduloc »

Yes, you can dance to "Up, Up And Away"~ You should try it sometime in high heels and tight skirt!


robduloc
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Re: Glen Campbell and Jimmy Webb

Post by robduloc »

Thank you. for that!

Thank you Mike, your post have really help me. I ordered the Rhino 5 CD box set, at first I was unsure what I would be getting, but the contents proved to be finished handcrafted pieces of artwork, a package that truly pays tribute to the artist.

And after hearing Dee's story, your verse is a very fitting tribute, perhaps the Grandfather embraced the universal properties of a penny, like dreams easily attainable and worth holding onto, and in the day grabbed our attention, I always go out of my way to bend down and pick them up off the street.

The first night Jimmy Webb spent around 8 minutes talking about the lines stretching far as the eye can see, and the sea of grass like waves on the ocean. Confirmation for me, Al de Lory manage to capture all that in the arrangement, and so musicians really do paint with words and music.

And I love your story about the origins of "Wichita" that sounds like some ancestral tribal name, where Jimmy Webb first got the idea, by the sound of your story, the song was floating out in the stratosphere waiting for him to pluck from the sky and give shape and form,

When you were a child, did your family read to you, were there book stores or shops your family frequented, did you have a favorite volume of Children's verses.

I can remember my first library card, orange tag board with blue ink, wrinkled because I kept it in my pocket as a treasure long before I could read.

Mike, do you have any stories or memories of Seattle.

I think everybody should come here and enter all the things they would have like to ask or talk about with Jimmy Webb.

It was very difficult, but I manage to tell him one story, I said in the late 60's our Elementary School served lunch in the classroom, the Teachers would bring records to play while we ate, I used to study them and could tell they were party albums, that the Teachers obviously played at home to shake things up, for a good couple years their favorite one was by The Fifth Dimension, they loved "Up, Up And Away", I could tell because the corners of the album were creased!
Last edited by robduloc on Sun Feb 19, 2017 11:09 pm, edited 2 times in total.


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Dee
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Re: Glen Campbell and Jimmy Webb

Post by Dee »

Seattle brew?
I am so there!

Mike, your work "in progress" has great potential! Keep working on it to finish, okay? :)

Looking forward to adding my replies to all these FANtastic posts as soon as I can this week!

For now, a teaser...and perhaps I should not tell the full story of Jimmy's wart story because it could be in his upcoming book. Wouldn't want to hurt his book sales. :)

From my personal journal from a few years ago; this is how I had remembered and recorded post-concert the beginning of JW's story:
While I was waiting to thank Jimmy after his performance, he told our little group that he is the 7th son of a 7th son ... and being a 7th of a 7th has given him a "gift for predicting things" -- a gift that has run in his father's side of the family. Jimmy then told the story of his grandfather who had something "special". People would go to Jimmy's grandfather for healing cures, for example, for curing their warts. His grandfather would give a new penny to the person with a wart and instruct this person to continuously carry the penny with him/her for 30 days. At the end of 30 days, the person would be cured of the wart. - JW
Then, Jimmy paused, as good storytellers will do, ....


robduloc
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Re: Glen Campbell and Jimmy Webb

Post by robduloc »

"Coffee"?


robduloc
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Re: Glen Campbell and Jimmy Webb

Post by robduloc »

I had a Social Security card and working at least two days a week since I was 13, and so I appreciate the story of the transistor radio on the tractor, only my first job was at a Movie House and so when Ii was done I could watch a movie.

I bring this up because of the way that I met Jimmy Webb, all my life was spent devoted to buying and listening to music when I wasn't working, which is always. 4 years of Little League practice, 3 years of Soccer Club playing in the rain in shorts, a year of Pee-Wee Football in '69, those were my Jimmy Webb years, when I learned to put pain aside and draw on deep reserves, when I was standing out in Centerfield I was day dreaming.

I really would have like to have told him- Jimmy Webb had control of my mind.

The Nightclub he appeared is Mount Everest, in my 20's I would get around the surcharges ordering an appetizer, when I used to live off a dollar sandwich and cold glass of beer.

And so, it was ironic to be at one of the cheaper bar stools and announce we didn't need anything to drink or eat, and subsisted off coffee the first night, clapping the hardest, stretching to let the owner whizz by with his bottles and glasses for dinner seats, after 30 years it is still the music that drives me- and everyone around me.

In a short matter of time there was the overall feel that Jimmy Webb had pulled up to the club in a car, he did talk about selling CD's from the back of his trunk, a wonderful moment for me when he explained that an artist used to be able to pull up at High Schools and sell their wares at Sock Hops, oh, the autographs, and adulation, a bona fide musician.

Around 3 songs in, Jimmy Webb stopped, turned to the audience and quietly said this is his first show after not singing or playing two and a half months, and then got real quiet, took a breath and confessed the majority of shows were spent talking about his father and this is the first one since he passed the other month.

That didn't stop him from introducing his father, injecting new life into the show portraying his booming voice and tick he brought back as a Marine after the War, he didn't say which one, I wouldn't rule out the Korean War.

The impersonation really warmed up the room, Ii think everybody were remembering their father, the sacrifice, so we could have an easier life after the Depression.

As the air was slowly sucked out of the room, people got more emotional listening to all the great words and melodies, untiring stories, the candles began to flicker more at each table, and I realized that I could close my eyes just like I were at home listening to "Phoenix", "Lineman" and "Galveston"- the flame bouncing off my inner eyelids, the main songs at the heart of my meditation and life experiences.

These are the artist who feed and sustain the world with their broad vision, never adhering to one particular system of composition, placing their hands on a finger board and allowing the music to flow where it needs to go, as every generation has its' own needs and set of challenges, a voice to speak to our innermost nature and awaken a deeper calling, a call for love, the most necessary of all essentials in life.

Jimmy Webb live at The Jazz Alley~


Mike Joyce
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Re: Glen Campbell and Jimmy Webb

Post by Mike Joyce »

Here's my idea for this particular subject. It's a work in progress of course.

I play a piano and I am also a singer
But now I have a wart on my little finger
If I had a penny, it would soon be gone
And I would be happy and I could play on.


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