The Cake and the Rain

April 17, 2017
In this kiss-and-tell memoir, songwriter Webb longingly recalls his nights of hot sex with beautiful women, his love of fast cars, and his appetite for cocaine and drink (which almost killed him), but offers no insights into his songwriting. Webb is best known for his songs “MacArthur Park,” Glen Campbell’s “Galveston,” and “Up, Up, and Away” for the Fifth Dimension. His magical touch in songwriting doesn’t carry over to his prose, which is often flat. Webb fails to maintain a compelling narrative flow as he jumps back and forth in time to chronicle the highlights of his childhood as a preacher’s son in Oklahoma and his decision to live in California; he describes his earliest attempts at songwriting in high school, and his decision to pursue it when Wrecking Crew drummer Hal Blaine tells him to “just stick with music.” Webb writes lovingly about the many musicians who ambled through his life, including Frank Sinatra, Richard Harris, Joni Mitchell, and Johnny Rivers.

March 15, 2017
All the sweet icing melts down, and some bitterness and tragedy lie exposed in the life of the hit-making songwriter.Webb (b. 1946), famous for -MacArthur Park,- -Up, Up and Away,- -Wichita Lineman,- and many other 1960s- and '70s-era pop classics, has a bit of a bone to pick. He wants readers to know, as if we don't already, that his songs have been transformative; an 11-page double-column appendix listing artists who have recorded them is just one bit of testimonial. But more, he's ticked at the -left-wing folkie exclusivity- that has relegated him, in the pantheon of songwriters, to the establishment-supporting, squaresville corner where has-beens like Marilyn McCoo and Glen Campbell live. Never mind that plenty of people worship both singers and that plenty of hipsters live and breathe by Webb. The chip on the shoulder never quite falls off, but thankfully, it gets less pronounced as the author presses on with this spry, mostly pleasing memoir that has more than its share of rough patches. For instance, he writes, when he came to Los Angeles from Oklahoma, he was a nice Christian boy who didn't smoke or drink. At the height of his fame--and this book mostly dwells on the golden age of the late '60s and early '70s--he hoovered up a line of what was supposed to be good cocaine but turned out to be -a super dose of crude street level PCP, enough to kill an elephant.- Along the way, mostly with an affect of not quite believing his luck, Webb recounts brushes with fame and his many high points, from idol Paul McCartney commissioning a song from him to losing a few brain cells during John Lennon's lost weekend--to say nothing of sessions with Richard Harris, prime interpreter of his greatest and perhaps strangest hit. An insider's view of the star-maker machinery and a treat for Webb's many fans.

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April 15, 2017
Singer-songwriter Webb's autobiography skips around chronologically: there's a chapter set in 1969, then one in 1941, then back to '69, then 1945, then 1970, then 1960, and so on. Confusing? Not really. Webb tells us about his childhood, early successes, and stardom in bits and pieces, in stories that take place in various stages of his life, and it all makes perfect sense. Autobiography as collage, perhaps? Webb made his name as a songwriter; he's worked with such artists as Johnny Cash, Rosemary Clooney, Frank Sinatra, Glen Campbell, Joe Cocker, Billy Joel, Barbra Streisand, and many, many more. He's written a lot of songs, but he's perhaps best known for the often-lampooned MacArthur Park (which contains the classic line about leaving a cake out in the rain). In the early 1970s, he transitioned from writer to performer, finding a whole new kind of success. Webb writes in a comfortable, conversational way, as though he's telling a few close friends some stories from his fascinating life, and the book makes a great way for a music fan to pass a few hours.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)