Jimmy Webb, Durham Gala Theatre

JIMMY Who? By the Time I Get to Phoenix, Galveston, Wichita Lineman and writer of another 162 Glenn Campbell gems. That's who.

Throw in songs he wrote for the Supremes and his tunes that were recorded by the likes of Waylon Jennings, Frank Sinatra, Art Garfunkel, Joe Cocker and hundreds more and you have one of the soundtracks of the mid-to-late 20th Century.

Playing his Steinway like a maestro, this piano man even stretches back to Gershwin in the 1930s as his tinkling evoked homages to Porgy and Bess and Rhapsody in Blue.

Rather than a trawl through his greatest hits, the two-hour show sees Webb weave wonderful stories of his life between classic numbers.

He's funny, very self effacing ("I'm just a country boy from Oklahoma"), derogative of his singing (he can't reach the high notes) but always very interesting as he regaled us with stories about the superstars he'd worked with.

Glenn Campbell, who he heard on the radio as a 14-year-old, is the main feature of his life. Having bought the record Turn Around, Look at Me, young Jimmy was fixated with songwriting and would later pen Campbell's greatest hits.

His 1960s songwriting was largely played out in the shadow of Dylan, Lennon and McCartney and Paul Simon. The contrast, he outlined, was while they were making music the critics called "essential" he penned Up, Up and Away a massive hit for Fifth Dimension and one which is popular in Britain thanks to a Nimble bread advert.

Webb sang a mere dozen or so songs and the night ended too soon. Like seeing Scotty Moore (Elvis' guitarist), this fantastic night with another living legend will live in the memory forever.

Ed Waugh