Biography

Texas-born Cassell Webb has enjoyed a career that carried her from late-'60s psychedelia

Psychedelic music

Psychedelic music covers a range of popular music styles and genres, which are inspired by or influenced by psychedelic culture and which attempt to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues-rock bands in the...

 to country music and latter-day folk-rock to modern folk songwriting, classical music production and moved her across an ocean in the process. Her voice, which can sound ethereal or mournful and crosses genres as easily as Webb's career has over more than 30 years.

Born in San Antonio, Texas

San Antonio, Texas

San Antonio is the seventh-largest city in the United States of America and the second-largest city within the state of Texas, with a population of 1.33 million. Located in the American Southwest and the south–central part of Texas, the city serves as the seat of Bexar County. In 2011,...

, in the late '40s, Webb began playing guitar at 14 and later gravitated to the psychedelic scenes in San Antonio and Houston. She became a member of the Children, a psychedelic outfit that was part of Lelan Rodgers' stable of artists, appearing on their 1968 Rebirth album and several singles. She later joined Saddlesore, a Texas combo whose core members, Mayo Thompson and Rick Barthelme, were survivors from the Red Krayola

Red Krayola

Red Krayola was a psychedelic, avant-garde rock band from Houston, Texas, formed by art students at the University of St. Thomas in 1966. The band was led by singer/guitarist and visual artist Mayo Thompson, along with drummer Frederick Barthelme and Steve Cunningham...

 (another Rodgers-managed act). They stayed together long enough to record one single ("Old Tom Clark") on the Texas Revolution label before disappearing in the early '70s.

Webb spent time in California and New York working as a session singer and acquiring some knowledge of production as well and then returned to Texas, where she spent the next few years working with such country artists as Jerry Jeff Walker

Jerry Jeff Walker

Jerry Jeff Walker is an American country music singer and songwriter. He is probably most famous for writing the song "Mr. Bojangles.-Biography:...

, Willie Nelson

Willie Nelson

Willie Hugh Nelson is an American country music singer-songwriter, as well as an author, poet, actor, and activist. The critical success of the album Shotgun Willie , combined with the critical and commercial success of Red Headed Stranger and Stardust , made Nelson one of the most recognized...

, Guy Clark

Guy Clark

Guy Clark is an American Texas Country artist. In his career, he has released more than twenty albums, primarily on major labels. He has also written singles for other artists, including Ricky Skaggs, Steve Wariner and Rodney Crowell....

, and B.W. Stevenson

B.W. Stevenson

B.W. Stevenson , born Louis Charles Stevenson, was an American country pop artist, working in a genre now called progressive country. "B.W." stood for "Buckwheat." Stevenson is most famous for his song "My Maria", co-written with Daniel Moore.He was born in Dallas, Texas and attended W.H...

. It was around the time she began writing songs that she also began her long association with songwriter/producer Craig Leon

Craig Leon

Craig Leon is an American born record producer, composer and arranger currently living in England. Leon was instrumental in launching the careers of many recording artists including The Ramones and Blondie...

. Webb went to Europe in the early '80s, first to Holland and then to England, where she remained permanently and began her solo recording career. Initially signed to the Virgin owned independent label Statik Records, for which she recorded her debut album, Llano, she later joined the roster of Venture Records, an avant grade off-shoot of Richard Branson's Virgin Records label, through which she recorded Thief of Sadness in 1987. Webb's most representative and popular album was her third, Songs of a Stranger, which was derived from her concert repertory of other writers' music, including Jimmy Webb

Jimmy Webb

Jimmy Webb is an American songwriter, composer, and singer. He wrote numerous platinum selling classics, including "Up, Up and Away", "By the Time I Get to Phoenix", "Wichita Lineman", "Galveston", "The Worst That Could Happen", "All I Know", and "MacArthur Park"...

 ("P.F. Sloan"), Nick Drake

Nick Drake

Nicholas Rodney "Nick" Drake was an English singer-songwriter and musician. Though he is best known for his sombre guitar based songs, Drake was also proficient at piano, clarinet and saxophone...

 ("Time Has Told Me"), Townes Van Zandt

Townes Van Zandt

John Townes Van Zandt , best known as Townes Van Zandt, was an American Texas Country-folk music singer-songwriter, performer, and poet...

 ("If I Needed You"), and Phil Ochs

Phil Ochs

Philip David Ochs was an American protest singer and songwriter who was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, earnest humanism, political activism, insightful and alliterative lyrics, and haunting voice...

 ("Jim Dean of Indiana").

Her subsequent two albums Conversations at Dawn and House of Dreams continued her development as a songwriter. The former was again recorded for Virgin Venture and the latter released on China Records.

Webb remains based in England, where her work on such radio programs as Saturday Sequence, coupled with periodic album releases and projects, such as the dance score Klub Anima (co-written with Leon), and singing and production work with artists such as Marillion

Marillion

Marillion are a British rock band, formed in Aylesbury, England in 1979. Their recorded studio output comprises sixteen albums generally regarded in two distinct eras, delineated by the departure of original vocalist & frontman Fish in late 1988, and the subsequent arrival of replacement Steve...

's Steve Hogarth and back ground vocal work on Blondie (band)

Blondie (band)

Blondie is an American rock band, founded by singer Deborah Harry and guitarist Chris Stein. The band was a pioneer in the early American New Wave and punk scenes of the mid-1970s...

's "No Exit album have sustained her career in pop music.

She has worked consistently on the productions of Craig Leon which since 1998 have been primarily in the classical field. Webb has also been a production assistant to Leon on television projects such as the 2009 documentary Orbit: Journey to the Moon, which aired on the U.S. Discovery Channel, and Bell'aria which aired in 2010 on U.S. PBS.

Her poetry has also been published by Pen & Ink of Ann Arbor, MI.

Webb's version of the Rolling Stones classic "Tell Me," from her 1990 album Conversations at Dawn (which also included her covers of Bruce Springsteen's "Reason to Believe" and, in a nod to her own Texas psychedelic roots, the 13th Floor Elevators' "Splash One"), has been included on the Connoisseur Collection's Jagger/Richard Songbook CD.

Albums

• Cassell Webb- Llano-Virgin Venture
• Cassell Webb- Thief of Sadness- Virgin Venture
• Cassell Webb- Songs of a Stranger- Virgin Venture
• Cassell Webb-Conversation At Dawn- Virgin Venture
• Cassell Webb- House of Dreams- China
• The Children- Rebirth-Cinema/Atco

Production Credits

With Craig Leon:

• Craig Leon- Nommos- Takoma
• Craig Leon- Visiting- Arbitor/Enigma
• Craig Leon- Klub Anima Sound Track-Psi
• Cassell Webb- Llano-Virgin Venture
• Cassell Webb- Thief of Sadness- Virgin Venture
• Cassell Webb- Songs of a Stranger- Virgin Venture
• Cassell Webb-Conversation At Dawn- Virgin Venture
• Cassell Webb- House of Dreams- China
• Mark Owen- Green Man –BMG
• Mark Owen- "Child" - single –BMG
• Mark Owen- "Clementine" - single- BMG
• Angel Corpus Christi-White Courtesy Phone- Almo
• Martin Phillipps and the Chills- Sunburnt --Flying Nun
• Cobalt 60 (Front 242)- Elemental CD-Edel
• The Fall- Code Selfish -Phonogram
• The Fall -Shiftwork -Phonogram
• The Fall -Extricate -Phonogram
• Doctor and the Medics- Laughing at The Pieces -IRS
• Doctor and the Medics - Spirit in the Sky -IRS
• Blondie- No Exit –BMG
• Blondie- "Maria" - BMG
• The Cesarians
  The Cesarians
  The Cesarians are a London-based group consisting of singer Charlie Finke, pianist Justine Armatage, drummer Jan Noble and an all woman wind section...
  
   - Cesarians 1
  Cesarians 1
  Cesarians 1 is the debut album released by a London-based band The Cesarians in 2009.-Musicians:* Charlie Finke – vocals, harmonica* Justine Armatage – piano, keyboards, celeste* Jan Noble – drums, voice on "About She Goes"...
  
   - Imprint
• Steve Hogarth
  Steve Hogarth
  Steve Hogarth also known as "h", is the lead vocalist and occasional keyboardist/guitarist with the British rock band Marillion. Hogarth was formerly a keyboard player and co-lead vocalist with The Europeans and vocalist with How We Live...
  
  - Ice Cream Genius (1997) - Poison Apple
• Bell'aria-"Little Italy"- EMI