PBS sets Oct. 30 air date for Jimmy Webb Great Performances special
PBS will give its Great Performances slot to songwriter Jimmy Webb on Friday, Oct. 30 at 9 p.m. ET / 8 p.m. CT. The programme, titled Jimmy Webb: American Songwriter, will air on PBS, pbs.org/gperf and the PBS app, Billboard reported.
The concert was recorded in February. Webb plays piano and sings through his own catalogue, including “Wichita Lineman,” “Highwayman,” “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” “Galveston” and “MacArthur Park.” He also performs “Up, Up and Away,” according to PBS.
He is joined by five guests. Vince Gill, Lyle Lovett, Ashley Campbell, Sheléa and Ryan Shaw all perform and speak about Webb’s writing in the programme. Campbell is the daughter of Glen Campbell, whose recordings made several Webb songs widely known.
The four men — Webb, Gill, Lovett and Campbell — sing “Highwayman” together. Sheléa takes on “MacArthur Park.” Shaw performs two songs, “The Worst That Could Happen” and “The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.” The programme also includes “Didn’t We.”
Archival clips trace where the songs travelled first. The broadcast features footage of Webb hits sung by Glen Campbell, The 5th Dimension and actor-singer Richard Harris, alongside Donna Summer’s later cover of “MacArthur Park.” Summer’s disco version reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, the weekly US singles chart, in 1978.
Webb was 21 when he won the 1968 Grammy for Song of the Year, the award for songwriters, for “Up, Up and Away.” He was nominated in the same category at the same ceremony for “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.” He later won a Grammy for Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalists for Harris’s original “MacArthur Park,” which reached No. 2 on the Hot 100 in 1968.
Another Grammy followed for Best Country Song for “Highwayman” as recorded by The Highwaymen. That group brought together Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson. Their version went to No. 1 on Hot Country Songs, Billboard’s weekly country singles chart, in 1985.
Webb entered the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1986. He received the organisation’s Johnny Mercer Award in 2003.
Jimmy Webb: American Songwriter is a production of John Paulson Productions. John Paulson and Karen Sherry Dolan are executive producers. Gary Menotti directed.
For viewers, this means one broadcast moves across pop, country, soul and disco without changing writer. The set list links the 1960s hits to later revivals, with the guests handling part of the singing.
