Jimmy Webb 'Twilight of the Renegades' album

Sanctuary Records is proud to release Twilight of the Renegades, the first solo record from gifted songsmith Jimmy Webb since 1996’s Ten Easy Pieces, on August 16th. Recorded at various studios in NYC and LA, Twilight features brand new songs in amongst classic live favorites that have never been recorded before. The critically acclaimed composer and singer, who brings a truly magical quality to his music, has created a sublimely gorgeous kaleidoscopic collection of songs.

In the words of Rolling Stone, "Webb's mix of melodic resplendence, arrangement sophistication and vocal vulnerability now permeates indie rock, even if the master remains nearly invisible.” Celebrated songs like “Macarthur Park” opened Webb’s phenomenal writing career, and he gained five top ten hits in a 20-month period during the 60’s. His work has resulted in an unending array of accolades and honors. He is an artist who transcends all categories and eras and has influenced and affected some of the greatest musical talents of our age. A singer, songwriter, composer, arranger, producer and writer, he is the only artist ever to receive Grammy awards for music, lyrics and orchestration. Some other key milestones during his more than thirty-five years of success include a Grammy for Best Country Song of the Year and a CMA Award for Single of the Year for “The Highwayman”, and membership in the National Academy of Popular Music Songwriter’s Hall of Fame as well as the Nashville Songwriter’s Hall of Fame. The National Academy of Songwriters also named Webb as 1993’s recipient of their Lifetime Achievement Award, although TIME Magazine was early to acknowledge Jimmy Webb’s range and proficiency back in 1968 when it referred to his astonishing string of hits, and commented on “Webb’s gift for strong, varied rhythms, inventive structures, and rich, sometimes surprising harmonies.” The honors continued and in 1999, he was inducted by actor Michael Douglas into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame as one of the State’s most celebrated sons. In early 2000, he was inducted onto the Board of Directors for The Songwriters’ Hall of Fame, and currently serves on the Board of Directors for ASCAP. Webb was also one of the few artists asked to perform in 1995 at Carnegie Hall’s “Celebration of American Music” honoring Frank Sinatra, and, at Billy Joel’s personal request, one of several artists (including Marvin Hamlisch and Garth Brooks) who performed for Congress in 1997 as Joel was presented with ASCAP’s Founder’s Award. In June 2003, Webb was the proud recipient of the Johnny Mercer award presented by Joel at the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

According to BMI, his “By The Time I Get To Phoenix,” has been the third most performed song in the last fifty years, with “Up, Up and Away” on the same list in the top thirty. Webb’s classic song, “Wichita Lineman” has been listed in MOJO Magazine’s worldwide survey of the best one hundred singles of all time in the top fifty, and was singled out in the Oct/Nov 2001 issue of Blender as “The Greatest Song Ever.”

Jimmy Webb concluded the 1960’s with an international name that was bandied around on the musical air currents as a “new genius.” Webb began the Seventies intent on launching his own performing career, releasing six albums in eleven years, including Words And Music (1970), And So: On (1971), Land’s End (1974), the George Martin-produced El Mirage (1977), and Angel Heart (1982), while writing hits for other recording stars. In 1993, he released Suspending Disbelief, which was produced by Linda Ronstadt and George Massenburg and received accolades from the press including the New York Times’ Stephen Holden who raved, “…may very well be the songwriter’s perfect moment.” Webb’s last recording effort, Ten Easy Pieces, is a collection of the songwriter’s hits as he performs them the way they were originally written. Webb’s songs also continue to grace a multitude of major recording artists’ albums, from Tony Bennett to R.E.M.

Webb continues to write songs that are as carefully crafted and magical as the earlier ones and on Twilight of the Renegades, he draws from a wide array of influences - among them jazz, pop, classical, country and rock - to create his most sublime and elegant collection to date. Blessed with a rich, weathered voice, Webb has an exceptional ability to connect to listeners and live audiences in a way that few singer-songwriters can. His combination of heart and soul and classic songcraft has resulted in an album that delivers emotive tunes for past and future fans of this wonderful artist. A collection of songs that is emotionally honest, musically sophisticated and diverse in range. The intense songs and delicate dynamics is a revelation for fans and has already earned critical acclaim in the UK. The London Times’ Nigel Williamson gave Twilight of the Renegades “3 stars” in the May 14th edition and proclaimed, “…he has a more convincing voice than Bacharach, plays classier piano than Elton, and boasts a songbook to match both — without the need for a Hal David or Bernie Taupin to supply the words. Musically the dozen songs owe more to Porter and Gershwin than rock’n’roll. Yet, although his sophisticated piano arrangements signal ‘middle of the road’, Webb is never banal for the simple reason that he habitually eschews easy options. The songs are full of melodic risk and harmonic surprise, married to lyrics that are always clever, frequently quirky and occasionally obscure. Given a rockier treatment, tracks such as ‘Spanish Radio’, ‘Just Like Marilyn’ and ‘Gauguin in the South Seas’ could rival the cool of the incomparable Steely Dan.”

Webb covers a multitude of lyrical and musical moods on record and in live performance and although Webb confesses, “When I started out, I was absolutely awful, I had no voice, I didn’t have a lot of stage presence and most of the [interpretive] intensity that I brought to the experience was actually terror”, the critics don’t agree, as evidenced by the reviews of his recent performance at The Lyric Theatre in London. On May 29th, Simon Price of The Independent wrote, “…make no mistake: this man is a genius, a visionary, and in his own way, an out-and-out lunatic…a stunningly dramatic pianist (Rachmaninov is said to be an inspiration). This is how he works: little vignettes, Polaroid snaps of real life, firing his imagination. In the age of Linda Perry and Gregg Alexander, God knows we could use someone with Webb's eccentric commercialism.”

As Frank Sinatra once said, “He has been blessed with the emotions and artistic talent of the great lyricists.” On Twilight of the Renegades, which will be in stores on August 16th, Jimmy Webb continues to create passionate and poignant songs and keeps the craft of songwriting alive.

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Jimmy Webb - Twilight of the Renegades