It's a family affair for songwriter Jimmy Webb

One of the greatest song writers of the last 50 years, whose work has been covered by such artists as Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, Glen Campbell and Shawn Colvin, is planning a one-off Midlands gig.

Jimmy Webb will be touring with his father, Bob Webb, and sons, The Webb Brothers – Christiaan, Justin, James and Cornelius. Collectively, they will be taking the stage together for the first time to perform as a three-generation family band in November.

It will be the first time in over twenty years that Jimmy has performed live with a full band, complimenting a successful career as a solo artist. Their Midlands date will be at Birmingham Town Hall on November 8.

On their UK dates, they will perform Jimmy Webb classics as well as notable Webb Brothers tunes. Tim Walker will join the band on pedal steel and Cal Campbell on drums, continuing the longstanding Glen Campbel/Jimmy Webb family tradition of collaboration. The new outfit will combine the rock sensibility and youthful production of the younger Webbs with the timeless Americana grandeur of their father's symphonic songs.

A project which paired the legendary American songwriter Jimmy Webb with indie-pop band the Webb Brothers -- consisting of his sons Christiaan, Justin, James, and Cornelius -- may have been inevitable; it was, perhaps, just a matter of time before it came to be.

The Brothers first had to establish themselves in their own right, which they did over the course of three acclaimed albums and touring over the past decade. For his part, Jimmy had to square away some time after a busy stretch in which he recorded new material, oversaw a box-set retrospective of his early work, wrote a book about songwriting, and performed plenty of solo piano shows.

The moment for collaboration finally arrived in 2009, when interest in both a U.K. tour and album coincided with the availability of all family members to work together.

The result, Cottonwood Farm, juxtaposes several new songs from the Brothers with a handful of treasures from Jimmy's archives -- two of them previously unreleased, including the epic, 12-minute title track. Jimmy wrote "Cottonwood Farm" in the early 1970s for his grandfather, and it proved an ideal focal point for the album, its various movements presenting character-roles for the family's many singers (including Jimmy's father Bob and his youngest daughter Camila). "Even though I didn't know it at the time," Jimmy says, "this album is the reason that I wrote this piece of music."

Two other songs from Jimmy's catalogue proved to be similarly well-suited for the family treatment. "Highwayman," which gave a name and a #1 hit to the mid-'80s country supergroup featuringJohnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson, neatly accommodated room for the family ensemble's multiple lead vocalists. And "If These Walls Could Speak" (covered over the years by Amy Grant, Glen Campbell and Shawn Colvin)had a strongly personal pull because its story is set within a 200-year-old farmhouse where the Webbs once lived.

The album's other two Jimmy-penned tracks are "Snow Covered Christmas," which he wrote in the 1980s but has never before released on an album; and "Where The Universes Are," which appeared on 1977's El Mirage but is sung this time around by Jimmy's son James.

The Webb Brothers' compositional contributions include "Hollow Victory," an anti-war song that James and Christiaan wrote shortly after the U.S. invaded Iraq; "Bad Things Happen To Good People," a bouncy pop number written and sung by Justin; the country-tinged "Old Tin Can," written by the brothers and sung by Christiaan; and "Mercury's In Retrograde," written by Christiaan and Justin and sung by James.

Cornelius, the youngest of the four (and the most recent addition to the lineup), plays bass throughout the record. On drums is Cornelius' best friend Cal Campbell -- son of Glen, whose late '60s smash-hits with "Wichita Lineman," "Galveston," and "By The Time I Get To Phoenix" were integral in launching Jimmy's songwriting career. Jimmy's father, Bob Webb, not only sings on "Cottonwood Farm" but also takes lead vocals on the album-closing 1940s standard "Red Sails In The Sunset."

The album was recorded primarily in Los Angeles, with Justin Webb serving as producer. Most of the tracks were cut on an old-school tape machine at Joey's Place, the former site of Electro Vox, one of L.A.'s longest-running studios.

Jimmy Webb's songwriting oeuvre includes some of the most oft-played and universally-recognized songs of the past century. In addition to penning several of Glen Campbell's signature hits, Jimmy wrote such classics as the Fifth Dimension's "Up, Up And Away" and Richard Harris' "MacArthur Park" (later taken to #1 by Donna Summer).

Over the decades, literally hundreds of his songs have been recorded by a seemingly endless range of artists, from Ray Charles and Isaac Hayes to Linda Ronstadt and Art Garfunkel to R.E.M. and Urge Overkill. His first five solo albums recently were reissued (along with rarities and a live recording) via the box set The Moon's A Harsh Mistress: Jimmy Webb In The Seventies. As a performer, he blends his swift, biting sense of humour with elegant renditions of his timeless songs.

Jimmy's sons Christiaan and Justin began performing together as the Webb Brothers in the late '90s, and released their first album, Beyond The Biosphere, on Warner U.K. in 1999. By the time their second album, Maroon, was released, they had brought their younger brother James aboard. All three brothers recorded the self-titled third Webb Brothers disc, which came out in 2003.

Their albums received widespread critical acclaim (Magnet magazine recently cited Maroon as one of the "lost classics" of the decade); in addition, their songs were covered by the Magic Numbers and the Earlies, and remixed by Manitoba. They toured extensively throughout the world, sharing bills with bands such as Doves, Franz Ferdinand, the Eels, Guided By Voices and The Darkness.