Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - GGACP Classic: Jimmy Webb

Episode Date: August 18, 2022

GGACP celebrates the recent birthday (August 15th) of legendary songwriter and composer Jimmy Webb (“Wichita Lineman,” “Up, Up and Away,” "By the Time I Get to Phoenix'') by revisiting this memorable interview from 2017. In this episode, Jimmy shares an entire career’s worth of memories and anecdotes, including meeting Elvis, playing baccarat with Ol’ Blue Eyes, turning down 40K a week to play Las Vegas and and sitting in on a recording session of the Beatles' “White Album.” Also, Jimmy parties with Paul Williams, crosses swords with Harry Nilsson, joins John Lennon on his “lost weekend” and pens megahits for longtime friend and collaborator Glen Campbell. PLUS: Father Guido Sarducci! Gilbert sings again! The Nelson Riddle Orchestra! The musical genius of Johnny Rivers! And Jimmy plays “MacArthur Park” in…MacArthur Park!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Trivia and dirty jokes, an evening with the boys. Once is never good enough For something so fantastic So here's another Gilbert and Franks Here's another Gilbert and Franks Here's another Gilbert and Franks Colossal Podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadre.

We're once again recording at Nutmeg with our engineer, Frank Furtarosa. You know, every now and then we get a guest who's accomplished so much and witnessed so much that we could easily do a seven-hour show. And today we're lucky enough to have one of those people. He's a musician, singer, record producer, author, and one of the greatest songwriters this country has ever produced, with numerous platinum-selling songs to his credit, including Wichita Lineman, Galveston, Up, Up and Away,

The Worst That Could Happen, All I Know, MacArthur Park, and of course, By the Time I Get to Phoenix, which Frank Sinatra called the greatest tort song ever written. His original compositions have been recorded and performed by a who's who of popular music, including Johnny Cash, Rosemary Clooney, Kenny Rogers, Linda Ronstadt, R.E.M., Carly Simon, Harry Nielsen, Tom Jones, The Supremes, Brian Wilson, James Taylor, Billy Joel, and Barbara Streisand, to name but a few. He's been a member of both the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. He's the only artist to win Grammy Awards

for music, lyrics, and orchestration. And in 2016, Rolling Stone named him one of the 50 greatest songwriters of all time. As vice chair of ASCAP, he continues to lead the fight to preserve and protect the intellectual rights of composers and songwriters the world over. His brand new book released today is called The Cake and the Rain, a memoir. least today is called The Cake and the Rain, a memoir. Please welcome a man Glenn Campbell once called the greatest musical poet of our time, Jimmy Webb. Wow. Wow. Did you get chills?

Boy, you know, from your mouth to God's ear, I mean, that was wild. The only thing missing would be to end it with, found dead in his Los Angeles apartment. You know, when Gilbert occasionally breaks into MacArthur Park on this show spontaneously, Jimmy, without any prompting at all. Well, that's great. And we had a running joke in between us. We said, if it gets out there, now we'll never get Jimmy Webb on this show.

And yet here you are in the flesh. I can sort of imagine what you're describing there. Hopefully you won't actually have to experience it. And just so the audience will know, Jimmy has been like working since like 5 o'clock in the morning. That was my wake-up time. We're recording this at 6.30 p.m. And it's been a really exciting day.

It started with Don Imus, you know, talking from Texas, which I know very well. I was raised in West Texas, and I think we had established some rapport. Oh, good. A rapport there. Because he started out very grumpy, and I think he sort of mellowed as we went on. That was fun. It was really fun. And I always wondered what it wouldllowed as we went on. That was fun. It was really fun. And I always wondered what it would be like to be on IMAS.

I like getting up early and doing show business things. And then I went over to Sirius. And I literally, I was like on show after show. Oh, you did Cousin Brucie? No, I did Steve Earle. Okay. So you've been going nonstop since this morning. Yeah, I've been doing them one after another.

Promoting the book. But I've been saving some extra energy for you. Oh, you flatter us. Now, and you started to tell us a story. Your friends, yeah. Well, you said that Paul Williams had been here, so I was going to, as usual,

blab about someone behind their back. This is the great songwriter Paul Williams. He's our chairman of the board at ASCAP. And it was very kind of you to mention ASCAP, but I really have

to say quickly in case any of my colleagues are listening that I'm not serving as vice chair right now. I'm on the board, very much on the board and very interested in all things ASCAP, but I am not serving as vice chair. That honor belongs to Doug Wood. But Paul and I know each other from aeons ago. When we both used to use the same studio, A&M Recorders, which was really the old Charlie Chaplin lot. I mean, it's like a piece of old Hollywood, like a museum piece. And, of course, that was A&M and Jerry Moss, Herb Alpert. Right.

And a beautiful studio. And there seemed to be a certain moment in time when everybody recorded there. And so I remember that Paul and I would often be there at the same time. Sometimes the Carpenters would be there. Sometimes Joni Mitchell would be there. George Harrison. It was an exciting place. Wow, that's cool.

And one night we were doing a B.J. Thomas record, and they were sort of running a little behind, and they wanted me to play a piano part, and Paul and I came in, and we were ready to work at seven and they said we you know we need you guys about eight and we said okay so we go to this place across the street which I for like of a the real name I'll call it the dance of the seventh veil okay and it was uh it was a it was a strip club it was it was a full-on strip club and we sat there yeah paul and i and this is you know i'm i'm 18 years sober now

well we sat there and got drunk and we got up and went back across the street to do this bj thomas record there's a picture of us together standing beside the piano that is so ridiculously sad and strange and somewhere somewhere along the way after that if you guys are patient enough to hear this, we decided for some reason that we were going to Palm Springs. And we woke up in Palm Springs, I mean at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and neither one of us knew where we were or where we had been or who we were with. And that was just one of the –

One of many. One of many little tears that we went on together. And that – I mean, I shouldn't be telling that story about the chairman of the board. It asked. That's all right. Sometimes we look at each other during a meeting and everyone's being really serious and everything. And we just laugh. We'll have him back. We're going to hold back anyway, but now we'll have him back to tell his side of that.

Well, yeah. I mean, he'll probably correct it. But those are the essentials. So those were the days, you know. Another guy you partied with a little bit is your old friend Harry Nielsen. That was another thing. Can you talk a little bit about Harry? He comes up on this show quite a bit.

Well, Harry and I started out on the wrong side of the bed. I had written something on a richard harris album about a lyric it was about skipping skipping like a stone through the garden or something like that and i had written i think somewhat capriciously not in a in a mean way i'd put bn and then an asterisk and then down at the bottom it's before nielsen uh when it's really a fred neal song it was like and skipping over the ocean like a stone and he got wind of it somehow and one day i'm sitting at home and david geffen calls me and said harry nielsen's over here and he wants to see you he's got a bone to pick with you and just the way way he said it, I knew that it was like a serious thing.

And I got in my car, and I drove over. And Harry was down. The pool was covered, and he was shooting baskets down there. Thin as a rail, skinny guy. And whoosh, whoosh, putting him right through the net. He was a good basketball player and i walked up there and he said well what an asshole you are you know something like that and i said hey hey and he said ah you're a prick you know and um i said no no no i said what what about that before nielsen thing before

nielsen he thought you were taking what does that mean i said i said no no that was just that was good spirited i said that was comrade to comrade bullshit you know you're like taking the piss out of me no no no i'm not i'm not man i just meant you know, I didn't want you to think I was writing something that you had already written. I wanted you to know that I wrote it before I heard your record. Well, I think you better think about that. I think you better think about your motivations. You'd go, like, intellectual on me, right? And so it started rough, but we, like, got into a groove together.

And before it was over, we were close friends. I went over to London, and I was there for the whole making of Nielsen Schmielsen, which may be Harry's greatest record. There are so many great records. And I was there with Richard Perry and in the studio with him every night. And I got to tell you guys, we burned London, man. We tore that city down, the two of us. It was never the same.

And it sort of went that way. And I'll tell you a good Harry story and then maybe we'll move on but one day Harry comes over to my house with an English producer produced for the BBC named Stanley Dorfman and it was a series called In

Concert and I'd done one of them and Harry had done one of them and a very very young Elton John had done I believe had done one of them, and a very, very young Elton John had done, I believe had done one of them. And he came over and he says, listen, you know, I want to take Stan, I want to take him on a sightseeing tour. And he said, I want to borrow your XJj6 i had a brand new jaguar xj6

burgundy i mean immaculate car and he said uh i said why do you need my xj6 and he says well it's just nice i want to i want to be nice and i want to take him to palisades and i want to be nice, and I want to take them to Palisades, and I want to run them out to Malibu. And I said, oh, okay. He says, we'll bring it back in a while. And I said, all right. And I tossed him the keys, and they split. And they dropped off the map. And I didn't see my car again for two months.

And what they were doing is they drove across the United States in my car. And then one day, like two months later, Harry called me and said, Hey, Jim. He said, I'm sending your car back. And he said, it's going to be on union pacific like flat car number you know x100 was in his head you know and um he said you need to be down there at three o'clock on friday afternoon and this is like the union pacific yeah and so and and i didn't even i said where what who what what click you know. Friday afternoon came.

I went over to the train yard. I found this guy, Max. He took me. He found a car. He found the flat car. And there's my XJ6, my prize, my beauty. And it looked like it had been in a round-the-world demolition derby. It had like some kind of a weird thing welded to the radiator to keep the hood down.

And it was all beaten and battered. He just trashed it. They destroyed my car. And that was Harry's idea of a fun thing to do. and that was Harry's idea of a fun thing to do. Okay, just when the show was starting to get good, we're going to throw a monkey wrench into the works with this commercial word. FanDuel Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling,

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to the show. Now, you met with the Beatles and spent a little time with them at a time when all of them hated each other it seemed. Well, you were present for some of the recording of the White Album. Yeah. It's almost like an embarrassing story.

But in fact, it's an embarrassing story because I was under the impression that I'd been invited over there. And it wasn't Abbey Road. It was Trident. It was in Queen Anne's Court. And I don't know why they were there, but they were there. And you could check it out. And they were cutting honey pie.

And that's what I call it. I think it has another title. But it was honey pie. Right, from the White Album, yeah. And so this friend of mine and I walked in under the impression we'd been invited and walked in. And it was an interesting tableau because on the right, the right part of the studio to my right

belonged to John Lennon. He had a Persian rug and he was burning incense and he was kind of sort of banging at an old acoustic guitar, and Yoko was there sitting cross-legged, and in the middle, George Harrison was standing upright and sort of, to the left, Paul and Linda. And Paul was sitting on the piano and was trying to play the piano, and Linda was wrapped around his neck. She had her arms around his neck.

And he was sort of like this. And he's the honey pie. Like this. And he's the honey pie. And somewhere down below my feet, because the drum booth is under the control room at Trident, was Ringo saying, is anyone there? You know, can you hear me? Can I get out of here?

You know, I don't do a very good Liverpudlian action. But basically, he's sort of saying, is anyone there? You know what I mean? It was crazy because it was kind of what was happening to the band. Kind of surreal. You know? And then they came in to listen to a track, and suddenly Paul is introducing me to George Martin and Jeffrey Emmerich,

who were later close friends of mine, is introducing me to these icons of, you know. And he introduced me to them as Tom Dowd from Atlantic Records. And I was so tongue-tied. I knew who Tom Dowd was, and I knew that I wasn't him. But they were the Beatles, and I sort of like, but I'm not Tom Dowd. And Paul's going, and Tom Dowd, Tom, come over here, Tom. And he says, I want to play a guitar solo for you.

And they got a guitar solo up on. They're playing at maximum volume, ear splitting, painful volume. He said, what do you think of that guitar solo? And I said, oh, I said, I think it's really good. Thanks, Tom.

I've got another one I'd like for you to hear. And he plays another one. He said, which one do you like best, Tom? And of course, he's taking the piss out of me, of course. Right, right, right.

But I don't know this. I'm a shy kid. And, finally, when he was finished with me, I guess, they sort of went back into the booth. And George Harrison came over and whispered in my ear and said, that's a great arrangement on MacArthur Park. And I knew that George knew who I was. And I walked out of there going, what the freaking hell just happened?

Right. What happened, you know? And then I found out that they did it to everybody. Oh, I see. That it was just, if you came within range, you know, you were fair game. And a lot of people. Having you on, as it were. A lot of people, you know, taking the piss out of you.

A lot of people had similar experiences with them. And I don't know how, I mean, I don't think you knew them all that well. No, I didn't. I actually got to know them better after that. But it was hard. I mean, you know, and I don't, I loved the Beatles. They were so seminal to me. And, you know, I fell in love with two English girls in a row, and both of them just chopped me up like a, you know, like a Julianne. I couldn't get over the accent. All they had to do was say hello, you know.

No, I loved all things English, and I loved the Beatles, and I loved the whole experience. I don't mean to come off as critical, but I would say as a whole, they were not the warmest people in the world because of their very special standing, which was really far above. I mean, the Rolling Stones could claim to be somewhere near the same cloud that they perched on. So they were detached. They were almost deliberately detached. Interesting. I always wondered how much of the way we all think of John Lennon is true and how much he just created like an advertising man. Well, to me, he was the most unemotional of them. And if you read the book, you're going to read a couple of things in there where

during the last weekend, I was sucked into that orbit, really was not seeking to be a part of that scene at all. And in fact, I was kind of jealous of John because Harry was my friend then. And he would call me up and I'd say, where are you? And he'd say, I'm in the studio with John. And I'd say, what are you guys, joined at the hip now? You know, I'd say snarky, like bitchy little things like that. Because they were always together. And a couple of things happened. One night they got in a real jam because John was on the verge of being thrown out of this country.

I remember. Because of – I believe it was a marijuana charge on the other side that sort of had him in hot water. But really the government – Yeah. Nixon was after him and was waiting to pounce on, waiting for him to make a mistake. Well, he made the mistake. Him and Harry got into a sort of heckling match with the Smothers Brothers at the Troubadour one night. Yep, famous.

And to make a long story short, on the way out through that little cramped hallway in the back, some sort of altercation ensued with a photographer. And John was accused of striking this female reporter and breaking her camera. Now, that's the news story. Well, the next morning at 4 o'clock in the morning, those guys are at my house. And Harry woke me up. The phone rang, and he said, hello. And I said, can I say this on the podcast?

Fuck you. Because I knew it was him. And I knew it was something. I didn't know what, but I knew it was him. And I knew it was something. I didn't know what, but I knew it was something. And he said, come on now. You know, he says, I've got John Lennon out here. I said, sure, sure, sure. I said, look, I'll open the gate.

But I said, just can it. And he comes up the thing. And he comes in through the kitchen door. And I'm down there in my bathrobe. And he says, I'm not kidding, man. He says, I got John running outside. I said, right, right. He said, come on, come on, I'll show you.

He pulls me out the back door. He opens the back of the limo. And there's John. Very sort of pale and quiet. And he slams the door. And he says, listen, here's what you got to do. And he lays this plan out for me where I'm going to go downtown to John's attorney's office now, right now, five o'clock in the morning. And I'm going to tell his attorney, I'm going to be

I'm going to tell his attorney I'm going to be deposed that I was at the troubadour with Harry and John which I was not and that I saw the whole thing and that John never touched the bitch and he never broke her camera either you know and I'm going to swear to this right and I did now I don't know whether to be proud of it or ashamed of it, but I know that there was a certain code of behavior. It was like there was a world that they lived in, and people just fell into line, and you found yourself doing things. And I rode all the way downtown with them, gave my deposition. I'm sure I did a great job.

You guys know I can talk. Thankfully. And when I got home, I got out of the car, and it was like there was no wham, bam, thank you, ma'am. It was like, boom, they were gone. Nothing. Nothing. And it wasn't like when my birthday rolled around i didn't get a little card that say you know love john and yoko you know it was like out of sight out of mind it was like you know you you could perjure yourself

if you want to wow that's really what i think you would for us. You almost got yourself in legal problems. I could have been. Serious legal problems, and they just took it as such. The county attorney, I think it was either the city of Los Angeles or the county of Los Angeles, dropped charges against John for lack of evidence. So was I part of that evidence? I might have been. I don't take credit for keeping him in the country,

and I am not crazy. I just, I recount that in the book, and I say that you didn't really expect thanks. You didn't really expect to be coddled in any way. It was a very it was a strange situation. How strange? They could have at least scribbled on a piece of scrap paper. Something. An FTD bouquet. Something. You could send anything.

You could send like a baby llama. Speaking of the Beatles and George Martin, Jimmy, there's a connection between MacArthur Park and Hey Jude. Well, here we go. These are, again, these are the the sort of uh borderline self-incriminating beatle stories uh but uh george martin became a very very close friend of mine and uh he he would he would tell me on more than one occasion that MacArthur Park, which was seven minutes, 21 seconds long, had kind of caused a shakeup in the top 40 world because they really did have to reschedule commercials and things like that to fit this in. I used to get paid three times every time that record played.

Really? Yeah, three times. Three for one. That was the good, really good part of it. And the radio stations wanted you to shorten it originally. Yeah. If I was asked more than once, I just wouldn't do it. Yeah.

So there it was, seven minutes, 21 seconds. And they're putting out a new record called Hey Jude. It's going to be their masterpiece up to that date. And they're putting out a new record called Hey Jude. It's going to be their masterpiece up to that date. And they get to listening to MacArthur Park, and they see that this has really never been done before on Top 40, and they want Hey Jude to be as long as MacArthur Park. So they took George into the studio.

They made some kind of a tape loop, and they overdubbed some other stuff, and they worked on the ending a little bit, and they developed this long fade. And everybody's heard the long fade on Hey Jude. They just don't know why it was done or where exactly did it come from. And they timed it out, andorge said they stood at the console and looked at the clock and they timed it out to seven minutes 17 seconds that's cool and um it's just you know it's just one of those you know interesting things they felt competitive they felt um like somehow or other that making hey jude longer would

would uh i don't know what i don't know what exactly what the motivation would be except to have a record almost as long as mcarthur park a friend of mine who i used to call and i sometimes i would get his answering machine you can can say who it is. Yeah. You wouldn't even know. Huh? Yeah. Oh, I thought this was pen. No, no.

I thought this was something you did to pen. It was. And just to be a prick, when his answering machine would come on, I'd immediately click on MacArthur's Park until old space on his machine ran out. I love that he says it like Richard Harris. Talk a little bit about the song, which, by the way, you recently performed in MacArthur Park. Yeah, I did. I've done it during the last three years.

I think I've done it two the last three years. I think I've done it two summers. And What was that like? It's kind of weird. But it reminded me and it was very

you know, this is going to some people would just laugh at this but it was very emotional for me because the song really does you know, with all the, I mean, everything.

It's been on Saturday Night Live. It was in Airplanes 2. Oh, Weird Al did it. Weird Al Yankovic. It's really been down the comedy road a few times. Yeah. And it's okay. Because it's iconic.

I signed off on most of those parodies myself. But I'm kind of emotional about what it means to me and being there in MacArthur Park. And it's a free concert. People come in. And I play a show. And usually I have somebody with me. Like I had Billy and Marilyn,

Billy Davis and Marilyn McCoo with me last time I did it. Sure, if you mention. And I do this song, and it makes me remember that everything that I wrote about, I saw. I remember where the old men played checkers by the trees. I remember where the cake was in the rain. I remember everything because everything in there is literal, you know. And I always joke with the crowd there, and I say, you know what's going to happen is that there may be a tear in the time-space continuum when I play this.

Because the last time I did it here, several people disappeared and have never been heard from again. That's funny. So, you know, I made a joke about it. Both times it was beautiful. It was in the summer, and there was a big moon over the Pacific. And I'm in MacArthur Park, and I'm playing MacArthur Park, and everybody is so quiet.

And they're listening to every word. And, you know, dare I say it was kind of a special moment both times I did it. And I would go back and do it again. Your life flashing before your eyes as you're reliving the imagery. So there actually was a cake out in the rain? Yeah, there was. See, all these years, I thought this is some, like, deep meaning. No, my girlfriend and I used to have lunch in the park every day.

And one particular day, we were interrupted by rain and um it sort of scattered our lunch and we went running for the for the the Aetna life insurance building for the steps and we sort of left our picnic, you know, scattered across the lawn. So it's just, I mean, there was never any deep mystery about any of it. It's prosaic. And it's just me taking images and kind of presenting them in a surreal way. How it came to life as a record is interesting, too, because do i have this right that you were going through things you would you'd worked on a charity event with richard harris you knew him or an anti-war show you knew richard harris and you were going through

your your bag of songs and do i have this right it was the macarthur park was the last one in that's right and he said famously, I'll have that Jimmy Webb. I love that. I'll have that Jimmy Webb. I love that. He called you Jimmy Webb. Yeah. He always called me Jimmy Webb.

Yeah, I love that. He never called me Jimmy, and he never called me Webb. But he always called me Jimmy Webb. What a character he sounds like. I just can't believe that these people who either baked or bought that cake that how how like how what an important thing this would be you know what it was that life for 50 years it was like it was like a couple of slices of cake. I mean, it was, it was, it was, people have this image of a big,

it was actually, you'll see, if you look on the title page of the book there, there's a quote by W.H. Auden that I remember. We have Jimmy's book here,

The Cake in the Rain. Yeah, right in the middle, right, right in the opening, the opening quote in the book is something that I, My face looks like a wedding cake

left out in the rain. And, and that's something that he wrote face looks like a wedding cake left out in the rain and and that's something that he wrote that i sort of remembered from school and was sort of borrowed and uh alluded to you know trying to sound literary um but uh yeah i mean who would know who would think that it would become a hit? Who would think that? And I didn't. Twice.

Yeah, it was, well, it was a hit. It was number two in the United States with Richard, and then almost ten years later it was number one with Donna Summer. Yeah. And it was on the U.K. chart twice. Both times it was, you know, better than halfway up. One time it was number one. One time I think it was you know better than halfway up one time it was number one one time i think it was in the 20s uh and it was just a re-release somebody said let's re-release macarthur park with richard harris it was a hit again uh and it was international it was it was a

hit in germany it was hit in italy yeah there were versions of it in Italian that were hysterical. They were just the funniest thing you've ever heard. And then, of course, the comedy guys got a hold of it. Sure. I remember Father Guido doing it. Don Novello. Don Novello. And he was like going, he had his wallet. I remember.

He'd take out his wallet and he'd go, and after all of the loves of my life. And then he would drop this sort of accordion of pictures of chicks, you know, like bathing suits. After all of the loves of my life. I mean, it was – he was merciless. I mean, he did it on SNL one night, and literally a wave of green icing came on. I guess it was blown on. It must have been with huge fans. I never asked Lorne Michaels about that.

But somehow they made a wave of green icing. It's got to blow your mind. And it, like, pushed everything off stage. Does it blow your mind that this is a song, this was very deeply personal to me, it was about a breakup, and now it's become this monster, it's become this thing that's in the culture for so long.

I used to get irritated about it. Sometimes I'd get mad because people would be, believe it or not they'd be angry with me and like someone would come up to me after a show and say what do you mean cake out in the rain you son of a bitch you know i demand an explanation all right yeah exactly and they would be so angry. And I was taken aback because I've gone through all kinds of stages of grief over MacArthur Park. But I'm at a point in my life now and I'm going, hey, look.

Some nice versions of it. It's what it is. Waylon Jennings did a nice version of it. Waylon Jennings recorded MacArthur Park four times. Four times, Waylon? All right. I was going to wait until the end of the show. You're going to torture the guy?

Yes. Didn't you just hear him say he was in mourning? Now I feel like, fuck it. Why have sympathy toward another human being? Can we sing a duet of MacArthur Park? Well, I guess. I'm just going to, we'll just do the chorus, all right? All right, Gil.

Okay, so you take the melody. We can't do Spring Was Never Waiting for a Spring. No, no, no. Why not? I like that part. Fuck you, Jimmy. I'm only going to do the chorus. Okay, let me find the chorus like I don't know it.

Okay. Where's your note? This one? He doesn't have a note. You obviously have never heard me sing before. Should I just start playing then? Okay, yes. Give him a cue. Here we go.

MacArthur Park is melting in the dark All the sweet green icing's flowing down Someone left the cake out in the rain I don't think that I can take it Cause it took so long to bake it And I'll never have that recipe again oh no oh no Oh, no!

Fantastic. You are a brave soul, Jim. Yeah, I knew it was going to be good, though. Wow. I have seen it all. I have seen... We sat here weeks ago. He broke into song. He spontaneously broke into MacArthur Park.

And now I have witnessed the great Jimmy Webb accompanying Gilbert on MacArthur Park. I can die a happy man. There's a nice version on Letterman, too, that Will Lee did with you guys. Yeah, he was so nice about that, David. Also good. He always liked that, and he said, I'm going to do this before I go off the air. We started talking about it, and the next thing I know, they're talking about strings. And then they call me up and they said,

we're going to have our band plus we're going to have brass and we're going to have strings. And Willie's going to sing it. And Dave's going to do a whole, I i guess like a 15 minute segment about you know harry he told a long story about his son harry and harry wanted to know about macarthur park and so he's trying to explain it to him and he says heck i'll just do it for you know he seems to have a wonderful affection for his son, which is natural. And so for Harry, he laid this on, and we all went on there. And it was always an amazing band.

I loved being on that show. I was on there with Carly Simon. Oh, yeah. I was actually on there with Glenn. I remember. And so many memories, just so many memories. And that night, Will Lee, I mean, he was absolutely tremendous. But at the very end of MacArthur Park, there's a cake,

and behind it is a ladder. And Will Lee is singing what you just sang oh no he's climbing the ladder and playing the bass and I'm looking at that and I'm going this could be the biggest disaster

in the history of show business because this is live television and if he falls off that ladder, he's going, oh, no! And hits the floor. I mean, he's going to be hurt. And there were people before the show saying, Will, don't climb the ladder. Don't climb the ladder.

He did it. He has a great voice. Yeah, have you seen the Fab Four? Have you seen the Beatle? Yeah, I love the Fab Four. They're fantastic. They play the stuff live that the Beatles never played live. Yeah, they are great.

I was just going to tell our listeners, check out the Fab Four, Will Lee and Rich Pagano. Oh, yeah, and the Hogshead Horns. Yeah, they're absolutely wonderful. And they'll do a whole Beatles album in a show. And when was the last time you saw Glenn Campbell? Well, let's see. It's been about, I think it's been about three or four months.

Every time I go to Nashville, I go see him. He's at a facility that's operated and was actually created by Vince Gill and Amy Gill, and especially with musicians in mind. And it's quite lovely. He has someone with him 24 hours a day at the stage of this disease that he's in um and he what i can tell you is that glenn was always an upbeat guy he knew 10 000 jokes he loved jokes he loved comedy anybody who ever saw the glenn campbell show knows loved – We remember. Oh, yeah. He loved – Glenn Campbell, good time hour.

And he always looked at the upside of things. And that part of him hasn't changed at all. The very core of his personality, which is buoyant and upbeat, is still buoyant and upbeat. And he says, hi. And he's glad to see you. He can't exactly remember who you are. I mean, this is – you face these issues as a friend.

But I feel embarrassed talking about what I've gone through. Of course. what I've gone through. Of course. As a friend, because I have been humbled by the heroism of the family. The family has been absolutely tremendous. And through, I mean, some of the roughest stuff that you can go through. I'm sure. I'm sure.

And I know eventually we're probably going to get to this anyway, but on May 3rd. I'm going to mention it now. Yeah, go ahead. Well, go ahead. Well, Ashley Campbell, Glenn's daughter, will be among the performers that are going to be doing a tribute, a celebration of the music of Jimmy Webb, The Cake and the Rain at Carnegie Hall on May 3rd. And also Amy Grant, Hanson, Toby Keith, the great Art Garfunkel, Judy Collins, you mentioned your friends Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr., love them, Graham Nash, Johnny Rivers, what a lineup.

Dwight Yoakam. Yeah, Dwight's going to be there. What a lineup. And the proceeds from the show will be donated to? The Glen Campbell Foundation is called the I'll Be Me Foundation. And the traditional recipient of these kind of benefits go to the National Alzheimer's Foundation. So those two will split the money. Good. And it just started out as, you know,

Laura sort of wanting to give me a 70th birthday thing as it took on this role of raising the profile of this disease and focusing attention on the families. Because the families really go through unbelievable rough times. And they hang in there. They hang in there. The they hang in there. They hang in there. The love is always there. And, you know, I'm grateful that Glenn is alive. Sure. And I never, never, I never, uh,

Oh, um, Oh yeah. I have to, I have to tell you this. Um, this thing is sponsored by Michael Dorff and the city. Oh,

city winery. Sure. I'm sorry. I left that out. And, and, um, you know,

they, they've been so great to me. I started playing city wineries around the country, and very quickly they became – actually, this whole thing happened one day. I was riding along on an airplane coming up north from Nashville, and I looked across the aisle, and this guy was looking at me. He said, you're Jimmy Webb. And I said, yeah. And he says, I'm Michael Dorff. He says, you know, I'm city winery.

And I said, oh, I've always wanted to play City Winery. He said, well, now you're playing the City Winery. Oh, that was a nice piece of serendipity. There's a great one here. So, yeah, and it's a great gig. Is it a fab foe there? All the artists will tell you that it's a great place to play. Yeah, great room.

And so they've waited in, and they're actually sponsoring the concert hall. And people can get tickets to the show by going, I assume, to the Carnegie Hall website. We'll tell people at the end of the show. We'll get the information. Yeah. And we'll tell people before we sign off. We'll make sure everybody has that, and we'll put it up on social media, too. Okay, good.

Tell us about your relationship with glenn which goes way back and how many jimmy webb songs is glenn campbell recorded 150 130 i'm doing a show uh which uh we kind of tour around the country that's multimedia it's got it's got big screens in the back and stuff and um it's films that it's films that i've taken and recordings that i've made and saved and personal pieces of memorabilia and it's all in sync with this the story of how Glenn and I came together and how diverse we were at the beginning because I was lefty left and he was righty right. Sure. And the first thing he ever said to me, and people say,

wow, how'd you meet Glenn Gamble? The first thing he ever said to me was I came walking over to him in the studio at Sound Recorders at Yucca and Argyle in Hollywood and I said I'm Mr. Campbell I'm Jimmy Webb and he was ignoring me basically he was turning his nods because I'd just gotten back from the Monterey Pop Festival

my hair was down to my shoulders I was wearing a red bandana I had on these beaten up moccasins and these you know I had a yak vest. Like Sonny Bono. Yeah. That's great. And not to put too fine a point on it, but my yak vest hadn't cured out just right.

You know, hilarious. And I walked up to him, and about the second time, I said, Mr. Campbell, I said, I'm Jimmy Webb. I wrote, by the time I get to Phoenix, and he looked up at me with those penetrating blue eyes, and he said, when are you going to get a haircut? Just like that. I mean, it was really a challenge. Friendship was born.

You? Oh, go ahead. No, no, no. That's it. That's it. But he hung out with Bob Hope and John Wayne and the Orange County Republicans. And he played golf. And I wouldn't be caught dead with a golf club in my hand unless there was a poisonous snake nearby.

So, I mean, you know. Very different people, but brothers in music. Very different. We found this place where we could communicate. You've said he was the best singer for your kind of writing. That was just—it was some kind of divine intervention to bring the two of us together. I want to do some Jimmy Webb stuff that I really do like, because I think Jimmy Webb is probably one of the best contemporary songwriters in the world

By the time I get to Phoenix she'll be rising She'll find the note I left hanging on her door And she'll laugh when she reads the part that says I'm leaving Cause I left that girl so many times before By the time I make Albuquerque She'll be working She'll probably stop at lunch And give me a call

Give me a call But she'll just hear that phone Keep on ringing Over the wall And that's home We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this. Gifting Dad can sometimes hit the wrong note. Oh. Dad can sometimes hit the wrong note.

Oh. Instead, gift the Glenlivet, the single malt whiskey that started it all, for a balanced flavor and smooth finish. Just sit back and listen to the music. Ooh. This single malt scotch whiskey is guaranteed to impress Dad this Father's Day. The Glenlivet. Live original. Please enjoy our products responsibly now you probably because you're prolific and you've had so much success you've been

talked down on by a lot of like they call you middle of the road and someone said uh the cold porter of the 60s and what what was some of the things the jabs i don't know no i read i i you know i remember them well you know i it was generally people trying to say something good who did the most damage that It's interesting. They used to – I mean, somebody called me Pop Music's Mozart. That was just humiliating. But I think that by and large what they tried to do at the beginning was really tag me as a middle-of-the-road guy, was really tagged me as a middle-of-the-road guy, as belonging to, as probably a Republican and probably, you know, four-square, straight arrow,

probably not what I was, which was crazy. Yeah. You know, and it took a while. But, I mean, I say in my book, you know and um and it took a while but the i mean i i say in my book you know that somewhere i ran around across a quote in a magazine that was talking about me and it said and harry neil nielsen was there with stoner friend jimmy webb stoner friend and and and i and i said to myself now we're getting somewhere. They didn't do their homework. You know, they just wanted so badly to be able to just pin me down in that middle of the road slot.

And I had this – I had an offer because I'd gone up and I'd played Wilbur Clark's Desert Inn with Connie Stevens. And I got great reviews there. And so did she. And we flew down and did a Stars and Stripes show in Oklahoma City. And I met Tom Stafford. I played MacArthur Park with the Oklahoma City Symphony. I played MacArthur Park with the Oklahoma City Symphony. And then we had a private jet, and we flew back to L.A.

By the time I got to L.A., there was an offer with my agent to play Caesar's Palace for eight weeks a year for $40,000 a week, which in those days was, it's like a quarter of a million dollars. Incredible amount of money. Um, and all I had to do was play MacArthur Park. I would come out on the stage, sit at a white piano, play MacArthur Park and the dancing fountains would come up. And then, oh, the dancing. No the dancing no I would sit at the piano and I'm not on stage yet I'm below the stage and the dancing fountains come up and then the piano comes up as I'm playing MacArthur Park and I do this once a night for a week. And I said, and you want me to sing?

And they said, no, no, no, no, no. We don't want you to sing. We couldn't pay you that much if you sing. 40 grand, okay, for eight performances. They wanted to give me eight weeks a year. 40 grand a week. Yeah, 40 grand a week, eight weeks a year to play MacArthur Park at Caesars Palace. That's offers for real. And I was going through a real crucible in terms of who I wanted to be and not so much

what other people thought of me, but what did I think of me? And I sort of, that was when I first touched base with David Geffen. And I sort of broke down in his living room one day and said, I know what I want to do, but I don't know how to get there. And he was this magician, you know, because he had Joni Mitchell. Sure. He had Crosby, Stills, and Nash. He was creating the Eagles. He had Jackson Brown ready to go.

And I said, what do I do? And he said, you can't play Vegas. And that was it. Yeah, he said, you can't play Vegas. And he agreed to manage me. He managed me for a while. And he was a good manager. And by far, he was the most influential guy I ever worked with in the business. I mean, he could make a phone call and some magical freaking thing would happen.

And, you know, Joni wrote a song about him called The Star Maker Machinery. And he was that guy. He could make that happen and I made an album for asylum and I really really tried hard to to you know in a sense put my past behind me but with a few more years but all right I looked back and I said what am I trying to put behind me? I'm trying to put Frank Sinatra behind me? I was just going to say that.

How many people? I'm trying to put Glenn Campbell behind me? How many songwriters had Frank Sinatra come and sit and just say play for hours? I'm trying to put Barbara Streisand and Tony Bennett behind me so I can go out and be underappreciated by, you know. But that's what I did. I went out. I played the coffeehouse circuit. I played.

And here in New York, I played the bitter end. I love playing the bitter end. Even in August when it was like 150 degrees in that little basement because Bill Evans was playing across the street. I'd take my breaks and go across the street to the Vanguard and listen to Bill Evans and have a hamburger. And I was in heaven. And we'd play the main point in Philadelphia. We'd play the cellar door in Washington, D.C.

It was a place in Denver called Marvelous Marves. And then, of course, there was the Troubadour. Of course. And so, you know, that's what you did. You played those gigs and you sort of waited for something to happen. And in my case, album after album, gig after gig after gig, it never really sparked for me. I never really caught on with that audience. But I was determined to make my own records,

go my own way, write my own songs. It's interesting because for somebody who's had such phenomenal success, and I'm reading in Tunesmith, that you don't refer to yourself, you don't think of yourself as a commercial songwriter. You said at one point in the book you wish you were. I wish I was. Let me put it this way. If I had been a commercial songwriter and if I could have talked myself into it,

I would have a boat as big as David Geffen's now. But I didn't go that way because it was, you know, and I've made a good living and I've had a good life. I would not go back and change it. I'm glad I did what I did because at some point in my life,

around about the time I met David, I declared myself an artist. I just declared myself an artist. You know, like whether you think so or not, I'm an artist. That leads me to an important question. You turn down $40,000 a week to play one song. This is going to kill him. My question is, what are you, an asshole? No.

He turned down Elvis Presley, too, ultimately. Well, the thing is, see, you would agree to that deal, and you'd play that gig, and you'd get all that money, but then you're stuck there. You're never going to move off that spot. You're always going to be on the strip playing. You're just going to play as the star of fame sets. You're going to be at a cheaper joint and then a cheaper joint and then a cheaper joint.

And you're just going to move down the strip, and you're always going to be coming out of the stage work, you know, playing MacArthur Park. You're never going to get to sing. You're never going to get to work with any of the people you really want to work with. get to sing you're never going to get to work with any of the people you really want to work with and as as it is i have to tell you man my life has been rich with uh musical uh diversity and and the different characters i've i've i've had hits with uh art garfunkel uh with joni uh judy collins sure um and i've had the respect of the people I wanted respect from. Everybody.

I learned that there was nothing wrong with Glen Campbell's music and there was nothing wrong with The Fifth Dimension. There was nothing wrong with Frank Sinatra. There was nothing wrong with The Fifth Dimension. There was nothing wrong with Frank Sinatra. There was nothing wrong with all that. And I've learned to embrace, you know, both sides of the coin and say, okay, what I've got here is I've got a story that's worth telling, and you've got it right there in your hands. And it's like it's sort of getting to play on both sides of the street

and uh you know yeah i if i had it to do over gilbert i would turn it down again it's gonna kill him i'm not gonna slow you ever again i'm sorry i had you on as a guest. Please get out of my studio. Speaking of Caesars, Jimmy, tell us about being summoned to Caesars by Mr. Sinatra. Well, it was always invited. He was a man with impeccable manners. It was like no invitation that you would ever get from anybody else because you'd arrive

and I used to drive my car up. I would drive probably my Cobra and I'd take a sports car up there because you could drive as fast as you wanted to drive in Nevada. And I'd get up there and pull up in front of Caesar's Palace. They knew I was coming. And I said, good evening, Mr. Webb. It's good to see you. Take my luggage, walk in. On the way in, the bellman would probably say, are you going to be needing any company tonight mr webb and i would say no thank you and um uh walk up to the desk and the lady would say

mr webb we've been expecting you your room is taken care of um and then i would find out gradually over the next couple of days that i couldn't spend a dime in the casino and that I had a marker for a couple of thousand dollars. How about that? So I could play, you know, if I wanted to play 21, I could play and I wouldn't really worry about anything. I'd take my father up with me. I was just going to say your papa was with you. He would be covered too. I remember one night that Mr. Sinatra took my father and I to the jockey club,

and they got into this big discussion about World War II and about how ugly the Andrews sisters were. Fantastic. And, I don't know, a bomb in Pearl Harbor and all this stuff. Here's your dad, a Baptist minister from Oklahoma, and now he's sitting with old blue eyes at the casino, and they're talking about the Andrews sisters. Eventually, I sort of felt like left out, and I said,

Listen, I'm going to run. You guys talk. And they went out later, I guess, and played baccarat, men de verre or something. Which I think probably wiped my father out on the first bet because Sinatra would literally bet 50 grand a pop on that crazy baccarat. It's a great game in a way, but, man, that's a lot of money. You know, it's a great, I mean, it's a great game in a way, but man, you know, that's a lot of money.

And so he, my father after that, he was, like I say in my book, he was like a maid guy. He like, he walked the walk, he talked the talk. He just had a bounce in his step. I mean, from then on, you know, and he started wearing a big pink, like a big diamond on his pinky finger. I love that. By then, he had moved out of the ministry. He wasn't a preacher anymore. He'd sort of become a record guy.

That's interesting. A man who told you that songwriting was going to break your heart one day. Yeah, he came over to my side. That's nice. That's a nice piece of redemption. And how did it work? He used to just, this was fascinating that I found in my research, Frank would pull up a chair and you'd sit at the piano and he'd just say, play another one. He liked songwriters. He liked, always did, long before I came along. It was Sammy Khan. He recorded like a hundred Sammy Khan songs.

James Van Heusen. Yes, and he'd always credit the songwriters. Harold Arlen. He was always anxious to credit the songwriter, which is different from just crediting the songwriter. He was excited to do it. And I would be sitting, you know, he would have a table for me right beside, right snugged up close to the stage, and he would come out,

and the excitement was unbelievable. I kind of get into it a little bit in the book. There was Nelson Riddle standing there holding a stick. You know, and every music stand said, Nelson Riddle, Nelson Riddle. Jack T. Garden is there. You know, all the great brass players from L.A. And like 30 strings.

Hal Blaine playing drums and this great big timpani and bells and chimes and things. And then a little woodwind section. It was like a little symphony orchestra. He would come out

and sing I Got You Under My Skin. There would be women passing out. I mean literally passing out. And the show would just keep skin. There would be women passing out. I mean, literally passing out. And the show would just keep rolling. They would come in and roll the ladies out, and, you know, the show would just keep going. And they were just, you know, they were, you know, he was such an impressive performer.

Here's some love songs played beautifully by our string section. This is Jimmy Webb This time we almost made those pieces fit Didn't we, girl? This time we nearly made some sense of it Didn't we go and this time

I held the answer right here in my hand then I touched it and it had turned to sand This time we almost Sang our song in tune Didn't we go

This time we nearly made it Up to the moon Didn't we go Vegas was a great place in those days. It was. Because you could get up close to the animal, you know. You could practically get Sinatra's sweat on you, you know. I mean, it was very visceral.

It was like, you know, you should have seen like the kind of money that was changing hands to get closer to the stage. Wow. Anything to get closer to the stage. And you met with Elvis Presley. Oh, several times. Yeah. Did you see him live in Vegas, Elvis? I saw him when he opened at the International Hotel.

Uh-huh. Yeah. I saw him when he opened at the International Hotel. And a lot of people from L.A. went up thinking nobody really knew what Elvis was going to do. It had been a long time since he played a live show. And even Elvis didn't know what was going to happen. He was very nervous about it. And, um, I think that a lot of cynics went up kind of hoping, gee, I hope he falls on his ass. You know, there's that thing, you know, there's that thing. And I, I kind of went up dispassionately

and I'm saying, you know, I never really got this guy when I was a kid, but I'm just going to check this out, you know, and walked into this gorgeous showroom, brand new, probably 1,500 or 2,000. I think they served 2,000 dinners for every show at the International. It became the Hilton International. And then I don't know what it became after that. I think they might have torn it down by now. But that first night, I was sitting up next to the stage. I was sitting at a long table, but I had the seat next to the stage. And about six seats down, this guy was glowering at me like he was giving me a bad face.

And it was Jim Brown. Wow. The great fullback. Running back, sure. And I said, hi. And he went, you know, like you're closer to the stage than I am. How did you get closer to the stage than I am. How did you get closer to the stage than me? And Elvis came out, and he did the whole Elvis thing.

Man, I just became Elvis fan to the core. I mean, there's no doubting that there was this magic, there was a magnetism that just permeated the room and just got inside you. And James Burton playing guitar, great, great drumming. And he was very solid in the rhythm section, man. He knew what he was doing there. And he was a rocker.

He really was the king of rock and roll. And you might sit there for a little bit. First thing you knew, and your behind was moving. You were patting your foot. You were into it. And after the show, he walked all the way down the front of the stage and was giving out silk scarves to all the girls. Because by now, there's hundreds of girls.

He's putting a scarf around their neck and kissing them. And he gets down and he bends over me and I think, oh God, he's going to kiss me. He thinks I'm a girl. I had really long, I had long hair. He bent over and he dropped a note. He actually dropped a piece of paper on the table, and it said, Jimmy, come backstage, Elvis. Wow. And, you know, and after the show, these two big burly Nevada-like highway patrol guys, police, I guess they were Clark County sheriffs. They came and got me on both sides and just half carried me through this crowd and back through the kitchen.

And I went through all these little, like, double doors and these little confined spaces and finally came up to this kind of a drab-looking dressing room. And they pushed open the door, and Colonel Tom Parker was standing right in front of me. And he said, he said, you Jimmy Webb. He said, I guess you're here to see Elvis. And if not, do I have this right?

If not for the Colonel wanting. He moved me out. Yeah. After about the fourth time, Elvis and I were together because we were getting along, and Elvis wanted to record MacArthur Park. That's what I was going to say. And Tom Parker was not going to let that happen. Elvis had to have all the publishing on everything he recorded.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I wasn't going to make that deal anyway. But you know what? He told Lieber and Stoller to piss off as well. I mean, he's the guy who said, nah, Elvis don't want to record with the Beatles. I mean, he was the guy. You know, Elvis never toured Europe.

There was never a London concert. Because of the Colonel. Because of the colonel. Because of the colonel. Interesting. Because the colonel's background was so dubious in the immigration department that people thought maybe that he was afraid to go back over there. He was a carny. Yeah. If you know what that means.

Oh, yeah. We had Steve Binder on the show. Do you know Steve? The Tammy yeah we had steve bender on the show do you know steve the tammy yes i know him he tell you some elvis he told us some elvis stories but also some colonel stories did he tell you the one about elvis standing on the corner on sunset and waiting for people to recognize him i don't think he did he he he elvis told steve bender one time steve was a good friend of mine he told him he, Steve says, let's go to lunch. We'll go over to the Hamburger Hamlet. And Elvis said, I can't go down there.

They'll tear me apart. And Steve said, I tell you what, he says, I'll bet you that you can stand on this corner right down here at the bottom of the stairs. I bet you you can stand there for 20 minutes down here at the bottom of the stairs. I bet you you can stand there for 20 minutes, and they won't tear you apart. And he finally, you know, twisted his arm and I guess shamed him into it. He got Elvis out there on the sidewalk, and Elvis stood there for 20 minutes, and nobody said a freaking word. Oh, that's fantastic. That's fantastic.

That's fantastic. That's fantastic. That's a Steve Bender story. That's great. Well, this man has had a very long day. Oh, yes. So we're going to cut him some slack. You should tell us if you have anything to plug right now.

He does. You got your book? He's got the book, and we're going to plug the Carnegie Hall Show again. A celebration of the music of Jimmy Webb, the cake and the rain. And what a lineup, Jim. Ashley Campbell. Oh, we have another plug that came from outside. Yes, musicof.org. Tickets are available.

Also at jimmywebb.com and the Carnegie Hall website. Thank you, Frank and Jimmy Webb team. Carnegie Hall website. Thank you, Frank and Jimmy Webb team. And then to show that I have no respect for you and your work and your fatigue. Oh, geez. And his phone's going off. Yes, that's the show, really.

Can we please, please, we have to sing a little of Wichita linemen. Oh, my God. Okay. He's going to indulge you again. Just nod to me when it's time for me to start. Okay, here you go. He doesn't have a key, Jim. I am a lineman for the county. And I drive the main road

Searching in the sun for another overload I hear you singing in the wire I can hear you through the wine. And the Wichita lineman is still on the line. Is he too far ahead, Jim, or is he too far behind? He's lost in space. He's kind of in a John Cage thing. Yeah, John Cage. He's a performance artist.

Oh, God. By the way, I love how Billy Joel describes Wichita linemen. An ordinary man having extraordinary thoughts. Yeah, he got to me when he said that. He actually, like, punched a button and, like, a tear went squirting out of the side. But I got control of myself very quickly. But he actually kind of got to me when he said that. If we ever get you back, we'll talk more about the songs and the history.

Some of the stuff that you do in your show is just so fascinating. It'd be great to come. Okay. And also, one last thing. But only if we get to do some more duets. He also wrote another song we've talked about on this show, The Worst That Can Happen. Oh, wow.

Johnny My Show on the Brooklyn Bridge. Yeah, do you hate that one too? We love them. He has a strange way of showing his affection for the songs, too. I'm going to plug the lineup of the event again. Ashley Campbell, the daughter of... I had a good time. I'm glad you came. Ashley Campbell,

Glenn's daughter, Judy Collins, Garfunkel, Amy, Grant Hanson, Toby Keith, Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis. We love them. Graham Nash, Johnny Rivers. God, we love Johnny Rivers. We should ask you Johnny Rivers stories next time. I want to say this while we're on the air. I want to say

this. It's a freaking shame, man, that Johnny Rivers isn't in the rock and roll. Oh oh how can that be that's all i gotta say love him wait wait what is with something else on the glass oh and michael douglas and katherine zeta jones yeah of course they're they're we'll be hosting a very very important part of the evening and dear friends and everyone there is a is a friend and a and a good person so your life will be flashing before your eyes yet again i'm i'm definitely going to get emotional i i haven't gotten emotional yet but i know that i'm going to get emotional about it well this was a thrill

and when it will never happen again no and i will never happen again we will never happen again no we. And I will never happen again. We will never happen again. No. We will never pass this way again. You lived out a lifelong dream there. You got to sing Wichita Lightning with Jimmy Webb. And I want to plug the book, too.

The Cake and the Rain, Jimmy Webb, a memoir. I apologize for not reading it. I tried desperately to get my hands on it. No, no. But it just came out. And so I'll wrap up by saying I'm Gilbert Gottfried. This has been Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre.

And we've been talking to a man who turned down $40,000 a week to play one fucking song. The asshole, Jimmy Wynn. Jimmy, this was a thrill. Thank you. Thanks for coming and doing it. Thank you. Okay, buddy. Thank you.

Bye-bye. Bye-bye. And after all the loves of my life Oh, after all the loves of my life I'll be thinking of you And wondering why guitar solo Thank you. guitar solo MacArthur's fog is melting in the dark All the sweet green icing flowing down Someone left the cake out in the rain I don't think that I can take it Cause it took so long to fake it And I'll never have a recipe again

Oh, no Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, Oh, come on. What do you think? Hey, buddy. Will Lee, ladies and gentlemen. Jimmy Webb. Oh, I loved it. Thank you very much.

Thank you, everybody. Thank you so much. Paul Schaefer. 545. 545. 545.