Songwriter Jimmy Webb coming to Naperville

The musical landscape of the nation was forever changed by legendary songwriter Jimmy Webb, whose influence has touched musicians from Frank Sinatra to Bruce Springsteen to Kanye West.

His success brought multiple awards, including Grammys, a spot in the Songwriters Hall of Fame (youngest ever voted in), and the title, "America's Songwriter."

Now Webb will come to Naperville to share stories from his new memoir, "The Cake and the Rain," focusing on his heyday of pop music hits the late 1960s and early 1970s, at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 20, at Community Christian Church, 1835 Emerson Lane, Naperville.

Fans can hear the tales, meet the author and hear a performance. Tickets are required and are available at JimmyWebbAndersons.brownpapertickets.com.

Webb's words have been sung to his music by a deep roster of pop artists, including Glen Campbell, Art Garfunkel, Sinatra, Donna Summer and Linda Ronstadt. He's the only artist ever to win Grammy Awards for music, lyrics, and orchestration, and his chart-topping career has, so far, lasted 50 years, most recently with a Kanye West rap hit and a new classical nocturne.

Now, in his first memoir, Webb delivers a snapshot of his life from 1955 to 1970, from simple and serene Oklahoma to fast and fantastical Los Angeles, from the crucible of his family to the top of his longed-for profession.

Webb was a preacher's son whose father climbed off a tractor to receive his epiphany. Webb, barely out of his teenage years, sank down into the driver's seat of a Cobra to speed to Las Vegas to meet with Elvis.

Classics such as "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" were recorded by some of the most important voices in pop before Webb's 25th birthday.

The 1960s were a supernova, and Webb was at their center, whipsawed from the proverbial humble beginnings into a moneyed and manic international world of beautiful women, drugs, cars and planes. That stew almost took him down, but Webb survived, his passion for music and work among his lifelines.

Webb's talent as a writer and storyteller is on every page of "The Cake and the Rain." His book is rich with a sense of time and place, and with the voices of characters, vanished and living, famous and not, but all intimately involved with him in his youth, when life seemed nothing more than a party and Webb the eternal guest of honor.