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Research dossier · Arts & Letters

Angel Heart (Jimmy Webb album)

album by Jimmy Webb

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionNov 22, 2025
Entity authorityQ4762188 ↗
Source-derived summary

Angel Heart is the seventh album by American singer-songwriter Jimmy Webb, released in April 1982 by Real West Production.

Critical response

In his review for AllMusic, William Ruhlmann described the album as "a classic of the style called 'West Coast pop', a creamy adult contemporary sound with a rock edge but plenty of strings, the tasty guitar solos offset by the sweet harmonies". However, he found the material weak by Jimmy Webb standards, with a number of compositions that are ponderous and/or lacking in distinction, and said that the two best songs, "Scissors Cut" and "In Cars", already had superior recordings done by Art Garfunkel.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Angel Heart (Jimmy Webb album)” is album by Jimmy Webb. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Angel, Heart and Jimmy, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1982—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1982. For this dossier, Angel, Heart and Jimmy is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “album by Jimmy Webb” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 22, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q4762188. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1982.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Angel Heart (Jimmy Webb album)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Angel Heart (Jimmy Webb album) primary sources, Angel Heart (Jimmy Webb album) archive and Angel research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Angel Heart (Jimmy Webb album)”?
  2. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Angel Heart (Jimmy Webb album)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.