Jimmy Webb

Career overview

Jimmy Layne Webb is an American songwriter, composer, and singer born on August 15, 1946, in Elk City, Oklahoma. His father was a Baptist minister, and Webb began his musical journey as a child, making his first public performance playing the organ at his father's church. He achieved professional success at an early age, winning a Grammy Award for Song of the Year when he was 21. Beginning in the 1960s, he wrote numerous easy-listening hit pop songs that became platinum-selling classics.

Webb is credited with writing notable songs including Up, Up and Away, By the Time I Get to Phoenix, Wichita Lineman, Galveston, The Worst That Could Happen, All I Know, and MacArthur Park. According to BMI, By the Time I Get to Phoenix was the third most performed song of its era. His compositions have been performed by a wide range of popular artists, such as Glen Campbell, The 5th Dimension, Thelma Houston, The Supremes, Richard Harris, Johnny Maestro, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Isaac Hayes, Art Garfunkel, Amy Grant, America, Linda Ronstadt, R.E.M., Michael Feinstein, Donna Summer, Barbra Streisand, Sammy Davis Jr., and Carly Simon. Webb has 24 known credits in the sound department, including work on the film Heat.