A Tramp Shining
A Tramp Shining is the debut album of Richard Harris, released in 1968 by Dunhill Records. The album was written, arranged, and produced by singer-songwriter Jimmy Webb. Although Harris sang several numbers on the soundtrack album to the film musical Camelot the previous year, A Tramp Shining was Harris' first solo album. "MacArthur Park" was one of the biggest singles of that year, reaching number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States. The album as a whole was also highly successful and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1969.
In his review in AllMusic, Bruce Eder gave the album four out of five stars, calling A Tramp Shining a "great record, even 35 years later, encompassing pop, rock, elements of classical music, and even pop-soul in a body of brilliant, bittersweet romantic songs by Webb, all presented in a consistently affecting and powerful vocal performance by Harris." Eder praised Harris' performance for its "sheer bravado", writing of his rendition of "Didn't We": Harris treaded onto Frank Sinatra territory here, and he did it with a voice not remotely as good or well trained as his, yet he pulled it off by sheer bravado and his ability as an actor, coupled with his vocal talents—his performance was manly and vulnerable enough to make women swoon, but powerful and manly enough to allow their husbands and boyfriends to feel okay listening to a man's man like Harris singing on such matters. Eder was equally impressed with Jimmy Webb's production and arrangements, which he called "some of the lushest ever heard on a pop album of the period." Eder concluded:
All songs were written and arranged by Jimmy Webb.
