Webb remarks: “‘Adios’ was written when I left California and moved east, which was about 30 years ago, and it was really meant as a kind of farewell to a whole aspect of my life and, I guess, for lack of a better term, to the California lifestyle and the whole idea of - there’s one line of the song that says, ‘Our dreams of endless summer were just too grandiose’ - you know, kind of coming to terms with real life. Sample lyric: “Don’t think that I’m ungrateful / and don’t look so morose / adios, adios.” To be sung Saturday by: Fitzgerald, a Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter who, on her website, lists Cheap Trick, Eddie Money and Nancy Griffith among the artists with whom she’s shared bills.įamous renditions by: Grant, Linda Ronstadt By the time I finished the song, I realized I was really writing a song about myself and the barriers that sometimes arise in relationships, the obstacles to communication.”
almost the mundanity of day-to-day life in an old house, and really that’s the way it started, and then, as songs will often do, it took on a life of its own. Webb remarks: “‘If These Walls Could Speak’ started out to be a song about an old house - actually a mid-1860s house that I owned and where I lived with my wife and our children. Sample lyric: “If these walls could speak / they would tell you that I owe you / more than I could ever pay.”
Of the five songs, Webb remarked, “Those come off of my short list of best songs I’ve ever written.” On the phone last week from his home in snow-packed New York, Webb discussed the history behind tune and what it evokes for him now:įamous renditions by: Glen Campbell, Amy Grant Patty Turrell, the center’s event coordinator, worked with Webb’s manager to match songs to performers. “It’s where I grew up, really.”īefore Webb’s set concludes the show, five members of the community - Harold Payne, Kelly Fitzgerald, Lacey Wood Heston, Melissa Lewis and Mark Wood - will each sing one Webb composition.
“My father was a Baptist minister, so I’m very comfortable playing in sanctuaries,” Webb said. Proceeds from the concert will benefit the after-school program Childs-pace and the nonprofit Women’s Journey Foundation, which works to improve the self-image of girls. Williams, who serves as president of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, invited Webb, a vice chairman of the society’s board, to lead a charity show at the synagogue. It was a Newport-Mesa connection that brought venerable tunesmith Webb to town. Last March, Paul Williams, a member of the congregation, put on a show with friends and fellow worshippers, and this weekend, the center - which holds its services and concerts at University Synagogue in Irvine - will welcome a contemporary of Williams whose hits have similarly dominated the radio.Ī partial roll call: “MacArthur Park,” “Worst That Could Happen,” “Up, Up and Away,” “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” “Wichita Lineman,” “The Moon’s a Harsh Mistress,” “All I Know.” Not every listener could identify the thread that runs through all those classics, but if you guessed “Jimmy Webb,” you got it. The Costa Mesa-based faith center has been the spot recently to rub elbows with world-renowned songwriters. In New York, there’s the Brill Building, and in Orange County, apparently, there’s the Center for Spiritual Living Newport-Mesa.
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