Cottonwood Farm


Cottonwood Farm is a collaborative album by Jimmy Webb and The Webb Brothers, released in September 2009 by Proper Records. The album tells the story of the Webb family through the voices of three generations.

Background

Recorded during various sessions in 2008 and 2009, Cottonwood Farm is a family affair, featuring Jimmy Webb and his sons Christiaan, Justin, James, and Cornelius—the Webb Brothers, who have three critically acclaimed albums of their own under their belts—as well as Jimmy Webb's daughter, Camila, and his 86-year-old father, Bob Webb, who sings a "delightfully endearing version" of the classic "Red Sails in the Sunset", making this album a "three-generation family affair".
Regarding the genesis of the project, Jimmy Webb wrote:

Composition

After opening with Webb's classic, "Highwayman", the album moves into its "emotional center" with "Cottonwood Farm", a twelve-minute epic that is "one of Webb's finest" and is "perfectly suited to the familial tone of the project." Jimmy Webb wrote the song in the early 1970s for his grandfather, but never recorded it. The album then moves into three songs by the Webb Brothers, including the lush and elegant "Mercury’s in Retrograde" which shows that "the sons clearly inherited a lot of their father's pop sense." The album transitions back to two Jimmy Webb classics, "If These Walls Could Speak", first recorded by Amy Grant, and "Where the Universes Are", which he wrote for his friend Waylon Jennings. The album also includes Jimmy Webb's "A Snow Covered Christmas", written in the 1980s and recorded here for the first time.

Critical response

In his review for Allmusic, Steve Leggett called the album "a warm fusion of history and melody from a remarkable family with an uncanny affinity for crafting its own elegant brand of pop Americana." The album received four out of five stars on Allmusic.

Track listing

  1. "Highwayman" – 4:44
  2. "Cottonwood Farm" – 12:03
  3. "Hollow Victory" – 2:50
  4. "Bad Things Happen to Good People" – 2:55
  5. "Mercury's in Retrograde" – 3:21
  6. "If These Walls Could Speak" – 5:12
  7. "Where the Universes Are" – 5:35
  8. "Old Tin Can" – 3:37
  9. "A Snow Covered Christmas" – 2:54
  10. "Red Sails in the Sunset" – 1:40

    Personnel

;Music
;Production