Webb's final solo album from this period, Angel Heart, was released in 1982 on Lorimar Records. Like its predecessor, the album drew upon the talents of top Los Angeles session musicians to produce a classic West Coast pop sound, enhanced by guest vocal harmonies by Gerry Beckley, Michael McDonald, Graham Nash, Kenny Loggins, Daryl Hall, and Stephen Bishop. Unlike his previous solo albums, however, Angel Heart lacked the quality material usually associated with the composer. Apart from "Scissors Cut" and "In Cars", which were previously recorded by Art Garfunkel, the album offered few high points, despite its polished production. A decade would pass before Webb released his next solo album.
From 1982 to 1992, Webb turned his focus from solo performing to large-scale projects, such as film scores, Broadway musicals, and classical music. In 1982, he produced the soundtrack for the film The Last Unicorn, an animated children's tale, with the musical group America performing five new Jimmy Webb songs: "The Last Unicorn", "Man's Road", "In the Sea", "Now That I'm a Woman", and "That's All I've Got to Say". The rest of the album contains instrumental music composed, arranged, and conducted by Webb. That same year, he composed the soundtrack to all episodes of the TV series Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.
Webb grew up in a religiously conservative family, and his father was a pastor. Interviewed for Rolling Stone magazine in 1982, he has said of his experiences in the 1960s: "In a way, I don’t think I did survive.... Certainly, that farm kid who showed up in Hollywood with a pack of songs under his arm didn’t survive. I think I lived quite a few years in a kind of haze, because as my manager once put it, I took to marijuana like a fish takes to water. And though my strong Baptist background broke down to a certain degree, it was always inside me. For a while I really did believe I was a genius. When you read it in the press a hundred times a year, you tend to believe it. But eventually all the hype caught up with me."