Gen Campbell was quite a guitarist and in high demand as a session musician before he found solo fame. He was a part of Hal Blaine's "Wrecking Crew" session players who got a Hollywood star a few years ago. The Wrecking Crew played on just about every major hit back in the day and most of the top singers.
GC also toured as lead guitarist with the Beach Boys after Brian Wilson got into drugs and could no longer do concerts.
I looked up Jimmy Webb and never realized how young he was when he wrote these songs. He wrote Wichita Lineman when he was 22. I realize pop groups often wrote songs at younger ages but WL has a lot of depth for a 22 year old professional songwriter.
Jimmy was am Oklahoma transplant to So Cal as I think Glen was a TX transplant. Jimmy talked about his faith and how it improved his songwriting to avoid cliches and hackneyed phrases.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Webb
Jimmy probably could have been a big pop star on his own because of his good looks.
Oh yeah the wrecking crew played on everything. Only thing comparable is the Motown Band that played on most of the Motowan records. I forget the name of the “group.”