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JW - Slipcover
Posted: Fri May 17, 2019 9:41 am
by Blair N. Cummings
If you have absolutely nothing else to do, you can listen to this on Spotify.
My response is as I suspected it would be: Why? Just, why?
Re: JW - Slipcover
Posted: Fri May 17, 2019 11:48 am
by blueonblue
Where are the vocals ?
'blue'
Re: JW - Slipcover
Posted: Fri May 17, 2019 2:34 pm
by pljms
blueonblue wrote:Where are the vocals ?
'blue'
blue, it's an album of solo piano renditions. He said in an interview that these were some of his favourite tunes to play alone at the piano.
Re: JW - Slipcover
Posted: Fri May 17, 2019 2:42 pm
by blueonblue
pljms wrote:blueonblue wrote:Where are the vocals ?
'blue'
blue, it's an album of solo piano renditions.
Silly me, my mistake.
'blue'
Re: JW - Slipcover
Posted: Fri May 17, 2019 2:51 pm
by blueonblue
blueonblue wrote:pljms wrote:blueonblue wrote:Where are the vocals ?
'blue'
blue, it's an album of solo piano renditions.
Apologies, my mistake.
'blue'
Re: JW - Slipcover
Posted: Fri May 17, 2019 3:49 pm
by pljms
I've had a quick listen to several of the tracks on YouTube and my personal favourite so far is the only Webb song on the album, The Moon's A Harsh Mistress. I think he really does justice to this tune, both melodically and harmonically.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dT6PjQuEL ... qc&index=9
Re: JW - Slipcover
Posted: Sat May 18, 2019 1:06 pm
by nowmedical
Where are the vocals ?
and
Why is he playing everyone else's tunes
Re: JW - Slipcover
Posted: Sat May 18, 2019 5:36 pm
by Blair N. Cummings
JW announced over a year ago that he was going to make solo piano albums. In the works are those featuring Irish folk songs and Baptist hymns.
Just who he expects to be interested in these projects is beyond my comprehension.
He has also stated that he plans to release an album of "the best songs I`ve ever written" at some indefinite time.
Those of us who have closely followed his career will recall that he has been making this claim rather regularly over the past three decades.
He submitted two of these works to his former label. They were (allegedly) rejected.
No one has more respect for the man`s talent than I do. But time and coke did fatal damage.
Re: JW - Slipcover
Posted: Sun May 19, 2019 12:32 am
by Martin Johnson
Webb has just commented on the album on his Twitter page. The line, "These rock star composers are the Gershwins of our time", might raise the odd eyebrow or two!
https://mobile.twitter.com/realjimmyweb ... gr%5Etweet
Re: JW - Slipcover
Posted: Sun May 19, 2019 2:32 pm
by Blair N. Cummings
I think JW may once again be raising the odd glass or two. Surely, he knows (or once knew) better than to equate the Gershwins, Kern, Porter, Rogers and Hart et. al. with the minor talents of those represented on this instantly disposable album.
Re: JW - Slipcover
Posted: Thu May 23, 2019 3:29 pm
by Sara D
I thinks it's a ludicrous statement to have made. I remember Bacharach stating in his autobiography that he always felt embarrassed whenever he was compared to Gershwin although in my opinion he's the only composer of the last sixty years who deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Gershwin and those other legendary architects of the Great American Songbook, Kern, Berlin, Porter and Rodgers.
Re: JW - Slipcover
Posted: Tue May 28, 2019 4:56 am
by pljms
Yes, I think Webb got a bit carried away there in his excitement at the release of his new album with that remark about Gershwin. However, I think the publishers of a soon to be released book about Wichita Lineman by British music journalist and biographer Dylan Jones will be more than a bit disappointed by Webb's determinedly downbeat summing up of the song: "It's just another song. I've written a thousand of them and it's really just another one". Here are the details from Amazon UK of the book due out in early August.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wichita-Linema ... way&sr=8-5
Re: JW - Slipcover
Posted: Fri May 31, 2019 4:38 am
by Martin Johnson
Whenever I hear Jimmy Webb himself performing Wichita Lineman or any one of the dozens of cover versions it really can sound like "just another song" and it was Glen Campbell and his producer/arranger Al De Lory on the original recording who supplied the magic and have given the song its lasting appeal.
Re: JW - Slipcover
Posted: Sun Jun 02, 2019 1:06 am
by pljms
Martin Johnson wrote:Whenever I hear Jimmy Webb himself performing Wichita Lineman or any one of the dozens of cover versions it really can sound like "just another song" and it was Glen Campbell and his producer/arranger Al De Lory on the original recording who supplied the magic and have given the song its lasting appeal.
While undeniably true I still think Wichita Lineman is a unique song, not least for the fact that the first half of the verses are in F major while the second half are in D major with the character of the words changing accordingly from observations concerning the lineman's job to those of a more romantic nature. Placing the B flat major 7th chord at the start of each verse on the words "county" and "vacation" when our musical ear is expecting an F major is another master stroke.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8P_xTBpAcY
Re: JW - Slipcover
Posted: Sun Jun 02, 2019 9:08 am
by Blair N. Cummings
True enough, but I don`t think the song merits a 288 page book. The Webb/Campbell story is wearyingly well-known and I don`t think we need the author`s fantasia on the narrative of the lyric. I`ll pass.