Twilight of the Renegades

Jimmy Webb's new CD TWILIGHT OF THE RENGADES is a disappointment, a disheartening letdown for Webb aficionados who have waited years for a new album. The album does contain inspiring moments and classic Webb songs that have cried out to be recorded and that deserve to be known more widely - 'Time Flies', 'No Signs of Age', 'Paul Gauguin In The South Seas', 'How Quickly' - but they are not nearly enough to save this CD. Sadly, there are few peaks on this record. A stimulating song or performance is quickly deflated by a weak one. Three superb songs, ''Time Flies', 'No Signs of Age', and 'Skywriter', are saddled with poor vocal performances or muddled arrangements. I felt strangely listless after listening to this CD. A Jimmy Webb album usually leaves me soaring.

At best, TWILIGHT OF THE RENEGADES is a half-hearted effort. My suspicion is that Jimmy Webb felt an obligation to make this album and no more. There was obviously little motivation to record the best album possible. Discouraging after years of being fed the line that Webb really was hard at work on a solo album.
Study the track list: plainly there was no will to write new songs (ignore the stated copyright dates: the bulk of these songs have their roots in the '80s). Nor was there a will to freshly record a CD's worth of songs (only 10 songs are recent recordings and the CD offers a meager 12 tracks). There appears not even to have been a will to select first-rate material from the abundant Webb song trunk ('Class Clown', 'She Moves, And Eyes Follow', 'Spanish Radio' hardly rank at the forefront of the Webb song catalogue and the less said about the execrable 'Why Do I...', bafflingly issued as a one track promo single, the better). Even the track sequence seems to have been slapped together with little planning or thought directed to the flow of songs (I reshuffle the tracks when playing the CD). Inexplicably, the lessons of TEN EASY PIECES, by far Webb's best-selling album and the ideal showcase for presentation of his songs (as attested by the recent UK performances), were either ignored or not absorbed. Who's advising this guy? One could spew further but why belabor the point.

The upshot: TWILIGHT OF THE RENEGADES adds up to about a quarter of the superior album I had anticipated from this artist. If you are a Jimmy Webb fan, as with anything Webb-associated, you must have this CD; if you are new to Webb, begin elsewhere (LETTERS, EL MIRAGE, TEN EASY PIECES, SUSPENDING DISBELIEF). Resolve, as well, to attend a Jimmy Webb concert, where you will experience more passionate and stirring renditions of many of the songs that appear on this CD.

Years ago, this mediocre an album by my songwriting hero would have left me in d land -disillusioned, disheartened, dejected. Fortunately, age and experience have cushioned the blow: in the grand scheme of things, TWILIGHT OF THE RENEGADES remains just a CD. One wish: that Jimmy Webb recognize the self-evident failings of this album and set a goal to produce a masterwork worthy, as the CD's sleeve suggests, of riding into the sunset to.