Jimmy Webb

SKF NOTE: This story is from the full typed transcript of my interview with Jimmy Webb somewhere between 1980-83. I edited the interview for a short piece in Mix magazine, which the magazine editors, unfortunately, edited again, changing the entire tone of the story.

I close out this post with one favorite Jimmy Webb song, sung by Glen Campbell.

Scott K Fish: Was your [childhood] home life involved in alot of music?

Jimmy Webb: A very strong religious background, church background. My father was a Baptist minister for 22 years until my mother died in 1964. She always wanted me to accompany my father. We would go out for revival meetings and things like that.

So she started me on piano when I was about 6 years old — and it really didn’t take at first. But when I was 12 or 13 I started getting really interested in the piano.

I think that something interesting about that is that you will hear people say — and I’ve had teachers tell me about my own kids — “Well, I don’t think this kid has an affinity for music. I don’t think that he has his father’s gift. (laughs) All that stuff.

But I didn’t have any kind of a gift. I wasn’t even slightly interested in playing the piano and certainly there were no outward signs of any ability at all. Until I was 12. And then it just seemed, like, somewhere it had stuck in there. All that information was actually still there, and it came out seemingly all at once.

I became very interested in it.

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