The inside story on my 50-year friendship with Glen Campbell

Grammy-winning songwriter Jimmy Webb has worked with hundreds of stars, but music legend Glenn Campbell was something else, he tells Starts at 60.

“When I was only six years old, my mother put me on a piano bench. We had an agreement that I would practice for half an hour a day and she wouldn’t hit me with a stick.

“By the time I was 12 years old, I was the church pianist and I used to go out with my father on evangelical missions. When I was 13 I wrote my first song. When I was 14, I heard Glen Campbell singing ‘Turn Around, Look At Me’ and I got down on my knees beside my bed and prayed ‘Dear God, please let me write a song like that and please let me meet someone like Glen Campbell to sing my song’.

“From the age 14 on I was always writing songs for Glen Campbell. It’s kind of pathetic really. The odds were against me.”

At 17, Webb’s mother died and he headed alone to Hollywood to make his fortune.

“I signed a song-writing deal with Motown West in California. My very first professional record that came out was a song called ‘My Christmas Tree’ that came out on the Supremes album Merry Christmas by The Supremes. They were at the height of their career. I was very excited [but] actually, not much happened. It never really changed my life but I had broken the ice.

“[The following year] I was working for Johnny Rivers Music. He was male entertainer of the year four years in a row. I went from Motown to his company. He signed me. He got interested in a song of mine called ‘By the Time I Get To Phoenix’. He recorded it. He also called Glen Campbell, an old friend of his. Glen knew everybody. Johnny said ‘Listen, I’ve got a song, what do you think of this song?’.”

Campbell loved the song, and agreed to record it.

“The first time I heard it on the radio of was driving my Volkswagen on the freeway. I almost had a serious accident involving multiple vehicles. I was all over the place, I was just stunned. This childhood dream of mine had come to pass.”

It was the start of a career that would see Webb go on to write numerous platinum-selling songs, Broadway shows, movie scores, and work with stars including Frank Sinatra, Linda Ronstadt and Art Garfunkel (below).

“[Years later] I went into the studio and there was Glen. I had just come from the Monterey Pop Festival and I was in my hippie get-up. I had a red bandanna on and I was wearing a yak vest and Indian moccasins. He was very crisp, hair just perfect, immaculate jeans, a rodeo belt buckle, and a beautiful white shirt with mother of pearl buttons on.

“I stuck my hand out and said ‘Mr Campbell, I’m Jimmy Webb’. He just ignored me completely. ‘Mr Campbell, I’m Jimmy Webb, I wrote ‘By The Time I Get To Phoenix’.’ He looked up at me and we made eye contact. He said ‘When are you gunna get a haircut?’. My hair was John Lennon length, so it was a bit of a rough start.”

But the pair hit it off and a long singer-songwriter partnership followed, producing hits including Wichita Lineman and Galveston.

“I had to go a little bit right, he had to go a little bit left, but we found a place where we could work together and make music. I was part of several albums. We used to perform together. We would go nuts.”

Now, Campbell, 80, has advanced Alzheimer’s disease and is in long-term care, where Webb, 70, continues to visit him.

“I visit and sometimes it is kind of hard for me to know exactly what has transpired. Last time I visited for an hour and he was paying my wife, who is kind of a doll, a lot of attention and ignoring me. I said ‘I don’t think he knows me’, and he pointed his finger at me and said ‘I do too know you’. He comes back sometimes and is gone again. It’s been eye-opening. I never realised how terrible this was for the family.

“I’m just doing what I always did and I’m lucky that I have my health. I’ll keep going as long as I can. I’d rather die on stage that in hospital.”

Webb hosts benefit concerts for the Alzheimer’s Association, recently published a biography called The Cake and the Rain, and is performing in Australia in May. For more details on his appearances click here.

What is your favourite Jimmy Webb song?