The Cake and the Rain: A Memoir

In this kiss-and-tell memoir, songwriter Webb longingly recalls his nights of hot sex with beautiful women, his love of fast cars, and his appetite for cocaine and drink (which almost killed him), but offers no insights into his songwriting. Webb is best known for his songs “MacArthur Park,” Glen Campbell’s “Galveston,” and “Up, Up, and Away” for the Fifth Dimension. His magical touch in songwriting doesn’t carry over to his prose, which is often flat. Webb fails to maintain a compelling narrative flow as he jumps back and forth in time to chronicle the highlights of his childhood as a preacher’s son in Oklahoma and his decision to live in California; he describes his earliest attempts at songwriting in high school, and his decision to pursue it when Wrecking Crew drummer Hal Blaine tells him to “just stick with music.” Webb writes lovingly about the many musicians who ambled through his life, including Frank Sinatra, Richard Harris, Joni Mitchell, and Johnny Rivers. (Apr.)