The Indefatigable Jimmy Webb Performing in Riverhead

Having won his first Grammy at the age of 21, the Oklahoma native has recorded a robust slew of studio albums, been inducted into the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame and is an ASCAP board member. He even had time to pen The Cake and the Rain, his 2017 memoir. On entering his eighth decade, Webb has been naturally circumspect coming off a year of touring and putting the finishing touches on his dream home with wife Laura Savini.

“I’m thinking my career could have been much larger and I could have been wealthier beyond my wildest dreams had I not been so single-minded in pursuit of my art in what I wanted to do, not what the manager wanted me to do,” he said. “And not necessarily what the public wanted me to do. I’m very satisfied that I stood by my guns and did the things I wanted to do.”

While the storied singer-songwriter will be shifting into octogenarian status, he’s still out gigging, accompanying himself on piano as he dips into his considerable songbook while gilding those jams with juicy anecdotes. One person who can attest to Webb’s in-concert prowess is respected indie rock composer Joe Pernice who caught the elder stateman’s recent February shows in Toronto.

“If you consider yourself an artist of any stripe, or if you want to witness and be touched by one, go to a Jimmy Webb show,” Pernice said. “You will be witnessing a truly great artist who was, is, and will always be all-in.”

Webb’s compositional staying-power is best evidenced by the ongoing success of “MacArthur Park,” a timeless song that continues to pop up every few years. While it was initially rejected by pop group The Association back in 1967, actor Richard Harris took a chance at this piece originally slated to be part of a cantata and slated to be an afterthought. Instead, his interpretation topped the charts in Australia and Canada, stalled at number 2 on the American charts and nabbed the 1969 Grammy Award for Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s).

The version Donna Summer recorded in 1978 topped the U.S. charts and nabbed the vocalist a Grammy nod for Best Female Pop Vocal. Both versions also popped up on the soundtrack to the 2024 film Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Most recently, figure skater Alysa Liu used it in her gold medal-winning showing at the 2026 Winter Olympics. Even Webb was caught off guard by the song’s renewed popularity while simultaneously being wowed by Liu’s performance.

“I was kind of spellbound in a way as the music started, and it was the Donna Summer version,” Webb recalled. “Then I saw this girl and she was magnificent. She was the best thing in a way, that’s happened to me in years. Her youth, commitment and kind of casual demeanor as she ripped her way through all this difficult skating and made it beautiful. You had this feeling that you were in good hands. She wasn’t going to fall on her ass. I just found it to be illuminating, enlightening and invigorating to watch her do that. It was like a gift to me and to millions of other people. It just shows you what you are capable of when you really apply yourself to something and love it so much.”

Webb’s 2026 creative dance card promises to be a full one. There’s intent to create a follow-up to The Cake and The Rain, which only went up to when its author was 23 years old. The North Shore resident also returned to his home state to record a live show for PBS’s Great Performances scheduled to air in the fall. Recorded at the McKnight Center on the campus of Oklahoma State University, the concert’s special guests included Vince Gill, Lyle Lovett, soul singer Ryan Shaw and Glen Campbell’s daughter Ashley. Then there’s Webb’s current project tentatively titled Found Songs, a batch of material he wrote for other artists who declined to record them. In hindsight, the 79-year-old composer can see why the likes of Sinatra and Bennett took a pass on them.

“As I got to looking them over, I realized they were turned down for a really good reason—there were glaring flaws in them,” he said with a laugh. “I think the end product is going to be interesting. They’re going to be twice written. They’re written once, in a much more naïve way where a person of Sinatra’s standing would look comfortable looking at me as he did. He said, ‘I don’t think that one is quite ready yet, do you kid?”

Jimmy Webb will be appearing on March 15 at The Suffolk, 118 E. Main Street, Riverhead. For more information, visit thesuffolk.org or call 631-727-4343.