In late 1961, fifteen-year old Jimmy Webb was working as a farmhand in Oklahoma. Every day he would take his lunch to work in a paper bag and dangle a green plastic transistor radio inside the cab of his industrial-size tractor. One day a song came on the radio called ‘Turn Around Look At Me’ that blew Webb’s mind. Losing concentration, Webb turned the wrong way and careered down the road, wrecking a $20,000 tractor and trashing his boss’s front garden. He lost his job, but it made a great anecdote – this had been Jimmy Webb’s memorable first encounter with the voice of Glen Campbell.
The southern gothic hit trilogy of ‘By The Time I Get to Phoenix’ (1967), ‘Wichita Lineman’ (1968) and ‘Galveston’ (1969) wove Jimmy Webb’s and Glen Campbell’s careers together. It was a magical meeting of minds, with Campbell’s rich expressive, melancholic voice a perfect match for Webb’s widescreen lyrics and complex chord sequences. They would continue to meet up and record on-and-off over the decades. The results were often frankly beautiful.
“I Am A Lineman For The County” pulls together every Jimmy Webb song recorded by Glen Campbell between 1967 and 1982. “Jimmy was like Brian Wilson, or Paul McCartney” said Campbell. “He can take a raw piece of material and make a horseshoe out of it. His songs, they’re timeless.”
Beyond the legendary trio of hits are songs like ‘Where’s the Playground Susie’, ‘Honey Come Back’, a #4 hit in 1970, and the original version of #The Highwayman’, a song later immortalised by Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson. This collection also contains every Jimmy Webb song from Campbell’s celebrated 1973 album “Reunion”.
With sleevenotes by Saint Etienne’s Bob Stanley, “I Am A Lineman For The County”is an essential purchase.
