Songwriter Jimmy Webb announces "Yours for the Taking" ahead of his 80th birthday

Jimmy Webb, the Songwriters Hall of Famer behind "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," "Wichita Lineman," "MacArthur Park" and "Highwayman," is releasing a new album on the eve of his 80th birthday. Yours for the Taking: The Found Songs of Jimmy Webb arrives October 23 via Sun Records, a 13-track collection of previously unreleased material spanning his six-decade career.

The songs sat unrecorded for years, some written with specific singers in mind who never got to them, others simply set aside. Longtime producer Fred Mollin held onto the compositions and helped bring them back. "Why didn't I release this when I wrote it? This could be a hit!" Webb recalled asking himself while revisiting the material.

The album includes "Winter Clothes (Original Demo)," an intimate early recording of a song Webb wrote nearly 50 years ago with Frank Sinatra in mind, alongside a newly recorded version featuring Graham Nash. Eleven other newly produced tracks feature Michael McDonald, Amy Grant, Marc Cohn, Beth Nielsen Chapman and Justin Currie, recorded with Nashville musicians and described as closer to rock and roll with jazz and country touches than a conventional Nashville record.

"A younger Jimmy Webb wrote these songs, decades ago," Webb said. "He was in a rush. He was hard on himself and his works." He added that he "was moving fast and leaving songs behind," and described himself now as more relaxed and more grounded, finally ready to release songs he once judged too harshly to put out.

Webb's songs have traveled well beyond the era they were written in. His compositions have been recorded by Frank Sinatra, Glen Campbell, Barbra Streisand, Nina Simone, Isaac Hayes, Linda Ronstadt and Tony Bennett, and later covered by acts including R.E.M., Guns N' Roses, Keith Urban and Flea, with his work also sampled by ODESZA and Kendrick Lamar.

Yours for the Taking joins the rest of this fall's country and pop arrivals on the release calendar.