Songwriter extraordinaire Jimmy Webb sings at the Kate

For years, Jimmy Webb was reasonably content with his reputation as THE go-to Songwriter - and artists from Glen Campbell, the Fifth Dimension and Willie Nelson to Frank Sinatra, REM and Donna Summer were happy to cover his tunes.

(Said tunes would include "Galveston," "Wichita Lineman," "The Highwayman," "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," etc. etc. etc.)

It's only been in the past few years that Webb's actually embraced live performances of his own catalog.

It's good news, then, that Webb plays Saturday in Old Saybrook's Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center. His last album, 2010's "Just Across the River," was a collection of duet arrangements of many of his best-known songs - and Webb more than held his own singing with the likes of Campbell, Billy Joel, Lucinda Williams, Jackson Browne and Vince Gill.

- RICK KOSTER

Jimmy Webb, 8 p.m. Saturday, Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, 300 Main St., Old Saybrook; $40, $45; 1-877-503-1286, thekate.org.