
The Cake and the Rain
A Memoir
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Narrated by:
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Jimmy Webb
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By:
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Jimmy Webb
Jimmy Webb's words have been sung to his music by a rich and deep roster of pop artists, including Glen Campbell, Art Garfunkel, Frank 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 Webb delivers a snapshot of his life from 1955 to 1970, 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 among his lifelines.
Webb's talent as a writer and storyteller will captivate listeners. His book is rich with a sense of time and place, and with the voices of characters, vanished and living, famous and not, when life seemed nothing more than a party.
©2017 Jimmy Webb (P)2018 TantorListeners also enjoyed...




















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I loved this memoir
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Disjointed story tellin
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Being a freelance musician who matured in and survived the same era as Mr. Webb, this read is especially poignant.
I've read a lot of negative reviews in this book but I cannot hold store by them.
My piece of cake!
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Thanks for your music Jimmy. That is what matters most.
Review of the times
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In many ways, this book reminds me of what made me want to write books, the suggestion by Henry Miller in the forward to Tropic of Cancer that true personal stories, full of experience and insight, were the seeds of great novels.
This book, including its many surprising stories of other celebrities engaged in the late 60s and early 70s, will stick with me. What I missed reading about was what was probably most intimate, his love for his mother who died while Jimmy was a teen, and how she's stuck with him since, inspiring at least one great song. That might have gotten just a little too personal.
One of the Best
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First book written by Jimmy Webb
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Webb has an amazingly wide range of personal contacts with people of renoun, from Sinatra to the Beatles, Harry Nilsson to Joni Mitchell, Sammy Davis Jr., Dudley Moore, Glen Campbell, Johnny Rivers, Richard Harris and countless others. On top of that he has several female love interests weaving in and out of his life with some strange recurring regularity. The net result is a tie-died rendering of people, places and encounters which are, again, hard to follow or relate to.
The final matter of difficulty in listening to the book is Webb's own voice. He is not a great reader. He sounds continually disgruntled and surly. It was the opposite of engaging. I was continually impressed with his vocabulary and creative imagry, which stands to reason for someone so imbued with artistic flair. But the tone of his voice and his inflections were offputting to say the least.
I came away with great respect for Jimmy Webb's skills, disappointed in his perpetually bad judgment vis-a-vis drug (ab)use and at a loss to relate to his materialism and arrogance. The man is a genius, I'm convinced. But, he's not likeable or, unfortunately, respectable. I guess that is testimony to the truth he was bold enough to grumble about for all those hours.
This Book is Hard to Listen to
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He tells of encounters with Elvis and working with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Johnny Rivers and Glen Campbell. If you follow music you will like this book. One thing he leaves hanging However. Who is the Devil?
If you like music you will like this book
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wow!
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Circuitous enjoyment
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