Jimmy Webb on the hits that got away and the 'wretched excess' of 70s L.A.

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Set us as preferred “By the way, can I get you something to drink?” Jimmy Webb asks, rising slowly from his chair.“Would you like to wet your whistle?” The 80-year-old songwriter and I have been talking for a while on a recent afternoon about some of the many, many renditions of his song “Wichita Lineman,” and as he rhapsodizes about the sexy-sinister version Flea and Nick Cave just released, Webb moseys over to the kitchen of his friend’s Westwood apartment and pulls an O’Doul’s out of the fridge to match his own.“They found the dark side of the lineman, which I don’t think anybody else ever thought of,” he says, opening the beer with a well-worn pocketknife.

“I was like, You brilliant motherf—.”More than half a century after he won his first Grammy Award — he took song of the year in 1968 for writing the 5th Dimension’s swooning “Up, Up and Away” — Webb is in town from Long Island with his wife, Laura, for a couple of gigs he’s got booked at the Catalina Jazz Club.He’s also spreading the word about a new album, “Yours for the Taking,” and a PBS special in which he looks back at some of his best-known songs, including “Wichita” and “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” (both made famous by Glen Campbell), “MacArthur Park” (a hit for both Richard Harris and Donna Summer) and “Highwayman” (which Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson liked so much they named their supergroup after it).Music Veteran pop showman Barry Manilow yearns to be back onstage.

At 82, he’s working on it.“Yours for the Taking” collects 11 new recordings of tunes Webb wrote over the years for himself or for others but which never made it onto a record; it features appearances by Michael McDonald, Amy Grant and Graham Nash, the last of whom joins Webb for “Winter Cl...