Newman, Randy

RANDY NEWMAN

Born: New Orleans, Louisiana, 28 November 1944

Genre: Rock, Pop, Soundtrack

Best-selling album since 1990: Bad Love (1999)

Randy Newman never enjoyed big commercial success but his songbook is considered one of pop music's treasures. Composed in multiple styles—in particular theatrical show tunes and New Orleans R&B—Newman songs offer the perspective of loners and lowlifes. They illuminate the humanity of characters with humor and compassion, and in doing they have helped shape the direction of contemporary songwriting.

Newman spent his early childhood in New Orleans, and his best work often views elevated moments in southern history through the eyes of ordinary people. His self-effacing humor and knack for irony help his work endure through countless cover versions by other artists. In the 1990s Newman emerged as a sought-after film composer, and he won an Academy Award in 2002. In between films, he experimented with a musical based on the classic dramatic German poem Faust by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe. In 1999 his first album after eleven years received critical accolades and prompted Newman to make live appearances accompanied only by a piano.

When he turned seventeen, Newman was already a published songwriter. Although he was raised in New Orleans, his family moved to Los Angeles in his early years. His uncles, Alfred, Emil, and Lionel Newman, were already there, working as Academy Award–winning film composers. Newman dropped out of college to work on staff for a local music publisher, writing hits for artists like Three Dog Night, Dusty Springfield, Peggy Lee, and Harry Nilsson, who recorded an entire album of Newman's songs.

In 1968 Newman released his debut album. As he honed his skills in the years to come, Newman would write songs that were both pain-ridden and humorous. His songs would be populated by racist southerners, young urban professionals, music industry opportunists, misfits, pimps, soldiers, legendary Louisiana governor Huey Long, and God. His songs might take place at the beginning of time, during the great Mississippi flood of 1927, or in hell. As much as his songs knew no bounds, he wrote under an umbrella of styles, using lush orchestrations or spare piano. "Short People," a hit in 1976, drew controversy for bigotry when in fact it was sniping at bigotry itself.

Newman entered the 1990s on the heels of Land of Dreams (1988), one of his most commercially successful albums. This work looked with nostalgia at his southern roots as it attacked Wall Street greed, blind patriotism, and the shallowness of hip-hop. Aside from instrumental scoring, Newman wrote songs for family movies like Toy Story (1995) and James and the Giant Peach (1996) that were considerably cheerier than his more personal work. He received fifteen Academy Award nominations and in 2002 he finally won Best Song for "If I Didn't Have You," from the film Monsters Inc. (2001).

In 1995 Newman released Randy Newman's Faust, a concept album that told the story of Goethe's hero, but in a contemporary setting. In Newman's version, Faust is a slovenly college student with rock star dreams who ends up selling his soul to the devil. After a tryout run at the La Jolla Playhouse in La Jolla, California, the musical opened at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago in 1996. Like most of Newman's work, it explores deep themes such as the omnipotence of God and the purpose of suffering in the world.

Newman closed the decade with a comeback album, Bad Love (1999). Considered one of his best, it features songs about patriotism, capitalism versus communism, divorce, and the challenges of learning history's lessons. The songs convey both pessimism and optimism, self-effacement and tenderness. Newman explores intricate themes in simplest ways, often with humor and grace.

Newman's instrumental scores are often compared with American masters like Aaron Copeland and George Gershwin.

SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY:

Randy Newman (Reprise, 1968); 12 Songs (Reprise, 1970); Sail Away (Reprise, 1972); Good Old Boys (Reprise, 1974); Little Criminals (Warner Bros., 1977); Born Again (Warner Bros., 1979); Trouble in Paradise (Warner Bros., 1983); Land of Dreams (Reprise, 1988); Randy Newman's Faust (Reprise, 1995); Bad Love (Dream Works, 1999). Soundtracks: The Natural (Warner Bros., 1984); Parenthood (Warner Bros., 1989); Walt Disney's Toy Story (Disney, 1995); James and the Giant Peach (Disney, 1996); A Bug's Life (Disney, 1998); Toy Story 2 (Disney, 1999).

WEBSITE:

www.randynewman.com.

mark guarino