Randy Newman

November 27 was the 70th anniversary of the birth of Jimi Hendrix. November 28 is the birthday of a very different American popular music artist, one who is a contender for the greatest living American composer of popular song. Randall Stuart Newman, best known as Randy Newman, was born into a family of musicians (his uncle Alfred won nine Academy Awards for his film work) on November 28, 1943. He has been writing songs professionally since his late teens. In his early years he wrote songs for other artists, and in the last few decades he has become known primarily as a composer of movie soundtracks, including films like The Natural, Meet the Parents, Awakenings, Ragtime, Cars, Monsters Inc. and the Toy Story films. He was nominated for an Academy Award 15 times before finally winning one on his 16th nomination, and he now has 2 Oscars out of 20 nominations (as he said, "my percentages aren't great"). But perhaps his best work has appeared on his albums, which despite a relative lack of commercial success (the major exception being the song "Short People") have been critically well regarded.

While Randy Newman doesn't have the level of fame of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones or Bob Dylan, he is highly regarded by many critics and artists. Paul McCartney, Brian Wilson, Peter Gabriel, Tony Banks and many others have said they are fans of his work. Several artists have recorded entire albums of Newman's songs, most notably Harry Nilsson on Nilsson Sings Newman. Mark Knopfler cited Newman's songs as an inspiration for "Money for Nothing". Even John Cleese, who admitted almost complete ignorance about popular music (he couldn't even remember what band Mick Jagger was in), said he was a fan of Randy Newman. For my part, while I wouldn't say that every one of his songs hits the mark, many of them are truly brilliant. I would say his best album was 1972's Sail Away, with the two runners-up being 1974's Good Old Boys and 1999's Bad Love, and there are plenty of great songs scattered among his other albums, not to mention among the tracks he wrote for others but never sang himself. He has a very good sense of melody and is capable of composing music in a wide variety of genres, but what really sets him apart is his lyrics. While some of his songs are overly caustic or too subtle even for me, the best of them are really without parallel.

To cover all of Randy Newman's best songs, whether performed by Newman himself or by others, would take several CDs, and that's without taking into account different covers of the same song. I have made several different compilations of Newman's work in the past, and rather than take the time to come up with a new list of songs, I am simply attaching one of these, including the original liner notes that went with it. There are a few good songs that I didn't yet have when I made this list, including many that appear on the compilations On Vine Street: The Early Songs of Randy Newman and Bless You California: More Early Songs of Randy Newman, and I should also point out that Newman himself did great versions of several of the songs on the first disc, such as "Sail Away". Perhaps for his 70th birthday, I'll put together a newer, more comprehensive compilation. For now, this one provides a good sampling of his work.

CD 1
1 I Think It's Going To Rain Today Judy Collins (1966)
2 I've Been Wrong Before Cilla Black (1965)
3 Simon Smith And His Amazing Dancing Bear Alan Price (1967)
4 The Debutante's Ball Harpers Bizarre (1967)
5 Wait Till Next Year Ricky Nelson (1968)
6 Just One Smile Blood Sweat & Tears (1968)
7 Vine Street Harry Nilsson (1970)
8 Snow Claudine Longet (1968)
9 I Don't Want To Hear It Anymore Dusty Springfield (1969)
10 Mama Told Me (Not To Come) Three Dog Night (1970)
11 The Beehive State The Doobie Brothers (1971)
12 I'll Be Home Barbra Streisand (1971)
13 Sail Away Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee with Arlo Guthrie (1973)
14 Guilty Bonnie Raitt (1973)
15 You Can Leave Your Hat On Etta James (1973)
16 Living Without You Manfred Mann's Earth Band (1971)
17 My Old Kentucky Home Johnny Cash (1975)
18 Love Story Liza Minnelli
19 I Wonder Why Ella Fitzgerald (1969)
20 Have You Seen My Baby Ringo Starr (1973)
21 Old Man Art Garfunkel (1973)
22 Baltimore Nina Simone (1978)
23 Louisiana 1927 Aaron Neville (1991)
24 Feels Like Home Linda Ronstadt with Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris (1995)
25 Every Time It Rains Joe Cocker (2002)

CD 2
1 Dixie Flyer Randy Newman
2 New Orleans Wins The War Randy Newman
3 Davy The Fat Boy Randy Newman
4 Political Science Randy Newman
5 Burn On Randy Newman
6 God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind) Randy Newman
7 Rednecks Randy Newman
8 Marie Randy Newman
9 Short People Randy Newman
10 I Love L.A. Randy Newman
11 I'm Different Randy Newman
12 Song For The Dead Randy Newman
13 It's Money That Matters Randy Newman
14 My Country Randy Newman
15 I'm Dead (But I Don't Know It) Randy Newman
16 The Great Nations of Europe Randy Newman
17 The Natural (Main Theme)
18 The Ballad Of The Three Amigos Steve Martin, Martin Short & Chevy Chase
19 Blue Shadows On The Trail Randy Newman
20 I Love to See You Smile Randy Newman
21 You've Got A Friend In Me Randy Newman & Lyle Lovett
22 If I Didn't Have You John Goodman and Billy Crystal (2001)
23 Lonely At The Top Randy Newman

This pair of CDs is intended to serve as a introduction to the work of Randy Newman, as well as a distillation of his very best material. The first CD features songs performed by other singers. In some cases these songs were originally written for these or other artists, and in others the artists were covering songs which Newman himself had released previously. Narrowing down the song selection to a single disc was a difficult task in more ways than one, as not only does Newman have many excellent songs which have been performed by others, but many of these songs have been covered by multiple artists, so not only did I have to decide between different songs, but also between different versions of the same song. To some degree, my choices were influenced by a desire to avoid to much repetition between this compilation and the one I did a few years ago. This factor was at least partially responsible for my inclusion of Claudine Longet's performance of "Snow" over Harry Nilsson's "Dayton Ohio 1903", for example, or my choice of Etta James' version of "You Can Leave Your Hat On" rather than the more familiar Joe Cocker version. However, for the most part I simply tried to pick the best (or most interesting) versions of the best songs, whether or not I had included them in the previous set. Even in the cases mentioned above, I felt that the ones I used were as good as the alternate choices, otherwise I wouldn't have included them.

Having narrowed down the choices to the best versions of Newman's best songs, the final result is, in my opinion, a brilliant set of songs. In terms of both music and lyrics, these songs are among the best around. Whether it's the tortured melancholy of "I Think It's Going To Rain Today", the tongue-in-cheek humor of "Wait Till Next Year" or "My Old Kentucky Home", or the dreamy nostalgia of "Feels Like Home", not to mention classic compositions like "Sail Away", "Mama Told Me (Not To Come)" and "Guilty", these songs are a perfect match of words and melodies. It's not hard to see why some people have compared Newman to Cole Porter. Whatever you think of that comparison, I strongly recommend that you listen closely to Newman's lyrics. Even many of his songs which might initially sound more conventional have little neat little twists. Good examples include "I've Been Wrong Before" ("You seem all that I've been waiting for, but then I've been wrong before") and "Just One Smile" (I detect a touch of irony in lines like "A little dream to build my world upon"). The interpreters are a pretty impressive group, including artists like Etta James, Art Garfunkel, Dusty Springfield, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, Aaron Neville, Ella Fitzgerald, Ricky Nelson, The Doobie Brothers, Barbra Streisand, Bonnie Raitt, and Johnny Cash. Even so, it's a bit of a shame that you don't get to hear many of the other interesting versions of Newman's songs, like Tom Jones' cover of "You Can Leave Your Hat On" from the movie The Full Monty, UB40's version of "I Think It's Going To Rain Today", Marcia Ball's recording of "Louisiana 1927", Scooter and Fozzie's performance of "Simon Smith And His Amazing Dancing Bear" from the Muppet Show, The Blues Brothers' (more specifically, John Belushi's) eerily ironic live cover of "Guilty", or Cher & Carol Burnett's duet of "Lonely At The Top" from the Carole Burnette Show, including their own lyrical additions (such as "I hear you're on your eighth divorce"). But perhaps I can do another CD for those who are interested in hearing more.

The second CD primarily features Newman's own recordings of songs which – with a few exceptions like the abovementioned "Lonely At The Top" – have not been covered by other artists. In some cases this is because the tunes are more personal (the first two tracks), or perhaps because they are relatively recent (tracks fourteen to sixteen), but in many cases because Newman's wit is so caustic that few others would have the nerve to sing the songs ("Davy The Fat Boy", "Rednecks", "God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind)" – actually the last one has been covered a few times, most notably by Etta James). The sharp wit of these tracks, combined with Newman's less-than-perfect vocals, means that these songs take a little more getting used to than those on the first disc. Once you do, however, you see that these songs are just as brilliant, with Newman's attacks on racism ("Rednecks", "Short People"), pollution ("Burn On"), jingoism ("Political Science", "Song For The Dead"), TV culture ("My Country"), over-the-hill rock singers ("I'm Dead") and consumerism ("It's Money That Matters") hitting their targets spot on. The remainder of the second CD features some of Newman's soundtrack work from movies like The Natural, The Three Amigos, Toy Story, and Monsters, Inc. and concludes with a live performance of "Lonely At The Top", another ironic tune which seemed a good way to wrap things up.