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Who2 Biography:

Randy Newman

, Singer / Composer
Randy Newman
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  • Born: 28 November 1943
  • Birthplace: New Orleans, Louisiana
  • Best Known As: Composer for the movie Toy Story

Randy Newman's pop songs of the 1970s earned him a reputation as a songwriter's songwriter, but he's famous to most audiences for his songs and scores for popular movies such as Toy Story (1995), Bug's Life (1998) and Monsters, Inc. (2001). Newman began writing songs at an early age, and in 1968 released his first album, Randy Newman Creates Something New Under the Sun. During the 1970s he released several albums that received critical praise and won over loyal fans, even if they didn't make Newman into rock star celebrity. He had a top 40 hit with "Sail Away" (1972), but it was his 1977 song "Short People," a controversial parody about bigotry, that became his biggest hit. Since the 1980s he has concentrated on writing film scores, including Ragtime (1981), The Natural (1984, starring Robert Redford), James and the Giant Peach (1996) and Toy Story 2 (1999).

Newman has been an Oscar-nominated composer more than a dozen times, beginning with 1981's Ragtime; his first Oscar win was for 2001's Monsters, Inc.... Newman's uncles, Alfred, Lionel and Emil Newman, were also film composers and conductors; Alfred Newman was the musical director for 20th Century Fox studios for many years... In 1970 singer/songwriter Harry Nilsson released an entire album of Newman songs, Nilsson Sings Newman... Three Dog Night's cover of Newman's "Mama Told Me (Not to Come)" was a number one hit in 1970.

 
 
Artist: Randy Newman
Randy Newman

Born:
Nov 28, 1943 in New Orleans, Louisiana

Representative Songs:

"You've Got a Friend in Me," "Sail Away," "Short People"

Representative Albums:

12 Songs, Sail Away, Good Old Boys

Similar Artists:

Brute Force, Tom Northcott, Warren Zevon, David Ackles, Neil Young, Jesse Winchester, James Taylor, Dusty Springfield, Paul Simon, Linda Ronstadt, Gene Pitney, Laura Nyro, Harry Nilsson, Joni Mitchell, Jeff Lynne, Lyle Lovett, Carole King, John Hiatt, Eagles, Ry Cooder, Jackson Browne

Influences:

Cole Porter, Fats Domino, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, George Gershwin

Followers:

Scott Albert Johnson, Ben Godwin, Alexa Ray Joel, Richard Swift, Katie Melua, Nellie McKay, Terry White, Jamie Cullum, Citizen Cope, A.C. Cotton, Dan Bryk, Willis, Bob Schneider, Ben Folds Five, Rufus Wainwright, Ben Folds, Denzil, Tot Taylor, Dino Soldo, Shawn Smith, Mike Reid, Mark Eitzel, Julie Christensen, Three Dog Night, Bonnie Raitt, James McMurtry, Lyle Lovett, Rickie Lee Jones, John Wesley Harding, Dire Straits, Elvis Costello, Luka Bloom

Relationship with:

Dian James

Worked With:

Waddy Wachtel, Willie Weeks, Lenny Waronker, Russ Titelman, Dean Parks, Jeff Porcaro, Andy Newmark, Milt Holland, Lee Herschberg, Michael Boddicker, Jim Keltner, Don Henley, Ron Elliott
  • Genre: Rock
  • Active: '60s - 2000s
  • Instruments: Vocals, Piano

Biography

Randy Newman was an anomaly among early-'70s singer/songwriters. Though he was slightly influenced by Bob Dylan, his music owed more to New Orleans R&B and traditional pop than folk. Newman developed an idiosyncratic style that alternated between sweeping, cinematic pop and rolling R&B, which were tied together by his nasty sense of humor. Where his peers concentrated on confessional songwriting, Newman drew characters, creating a world filled with misfits, outcasts, charlatans, and con men. Though he occasionally showed sympathy for his characters, he became well known for his biting sense of satire, highlighted by his fluke 1978 hit "Short People" and his parody of '80s yuppies, "I Love L.A." While Newman's records consistently received strongly positive reviews, he made his money through composing film scores for films like Ragtime and The Natural. His albums may never have sold in large amounts, but his work influenced several generations of songwriters, including Lyle Lovett and Mark Knopfler.

Born into a musical family -- his uncles Alfred and Lionel were both noted film composers -- Randy Newman had become a professional songwriter by the time he was 17, working for a Californian publishing house. Newman pursued a B.A. in music from UCLA, but he dropped out of college when his friend Lenny Waronker landed him a record contract with Reprise Records. His eponymous debut album received little attention upon its 1968 release, but over the next few years, his reputation as a songwriter grew as Judy Collins, Dusty Springfield and Peggy Lee recorded his songs. Three Dog Night took his "Mama Told Me Not to Come" to number one in 1970, the same year Harry Nilsson recorded an entire album of Randy's songs, Nilsson Sings Newman.

Newman's second album, 1970's 12 Songs, was widely praised upon its release, but the record failed to sell. Live repeated the same pattern in 1971, but 1972's Sail Away became a moderate hit, due to positive reviews and Newman's constant touring. He followed the record album in 1974 with Good Old Boys, an ambitious concept album about the South that received considerable controversy over its song "Rednecks," whose ironic sense of humor was misunderstood by many. The song set the stage for 1977's "Short People," a simple satire of bigotry and prejudice taken from Little Criminals. While the irony in "Short People" was barely hidden, the song offended many listeners, and the ensuing furor helped the single reach number two on the charts. Newman supported the album with his first tour since 1974.

In 1979, he returned with Born Again, which received mixed reviews, and Newman began a career as a film composer two years after its release. His first score was for Milos Forman's Ragtime, and his work was nominated for two Academy Awards. Newman released Trouble in Paradise to strong reviews in 1983, and the album spawned "I Love L.A.," a parody of shallow yuppie culture that was misinterpreted and became an anthem for '80s greed. Newman didn't release another album until 1988's Land of Dreams, which contained his first attempts at personal songwriting. Like most of his records, the album was greeted warmly by the critics, yet it failed to sell; "It's Money That Matters," a rewrite of "I Love LA," did become a minor hit.

Newman spent most of the '90s composing film scores and working on a musical adaptation of Dr. Faust. The resulting musical, Faust, was initially released as a concept album in the fall of 1995 to mixed reviews. A stage version of Faust opened the same month as the album's release, and it received better reviews. Newman garnered another Oscar nomination in 1996 for "You've Got a Friend," which was featured in the Disney computer-animated film, Toy Story. His career was celebrated in 1998 with the release of the four-disc box set Guilty: 30 Years of Randy Newman.

Newman split with his longtime record company Reprise in early 1999. He signed with DreamWorks and released Bad Love, his first proper album since 1988's Land of Dreams, in the summer of 1999. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
 
Actor:

Randy Newman

  • Born: Nov 28, 1943 in Los Angeles, California
  • Occupation: Actor
  • Active: '70s-2000s
  • Major Genres: Comedy, Children's/Family
  • Career Highlights: Toy Story 2, Toy Story, Awakenings
  • First Major Screen Credit: Tony Rome (1967)

Biography

Though he perhaps was most famous during the 1960s and 1970s for writing quirky, darkly funny, or sharply satirical songs that often painted vivid portraits detailing the foibles and lives of lifelike characters, there is much more to Randy Newman's music than humor or novelty. Stylistically, his music runs the gamut from classically influenced film scores to R&B-type pop to haunting ballads and, most of all, to his upbeat, subtly orchestrated shuffling amalgam of New Orleans jazz and ragtime. Though his output of recorded music is somewhat sporadic, owing largely to his innate perfectionism, Newman has had a great effect on pop music and those influenced by him include Lyle Lovett, Paul Simon, and Mark Knopfler. Newman's contributions to film scoring have also been large and, in 1995, he received Oscar nominations for Best Song and Best Original Musical or Comedy Score for his work in Toy Story (1995).

Newman was born in Los Angeles, during WWII. At the time, his father was overseas serving as an army captain in Italy and Newman's childhood was punctuated by numerous moves throughout the South, where his mother's family and closest friends lived. He was most influenced by the time he spent with his mother's family in New Orleans. Musically, one of his greatest influences was the compositions of his uncle Alfred Newman, one of cinema's finest and most highly regarded film scorists. His two other uncles, Lionel and Emil, were also noted composers. As a boy, Newman frequently visited the soundstages where his uncle worked.

Newman began writing songs for Metric, the publishing house for Liberty Records, at age 16, thanks to the influence of his close friend Lenny Waronker, son of company founder Simon Waronker. Songwriting has never been easy for Newman and it took him a long time to find his unique voice. In 1962, he wrote his first music for television, for the episode "Northern Comfort" on the sitcom Dobie Gillis. At the time, he was moonlighting part time at 20th Century Fox, working on an old copy machine, and fetching music for composers. He also found time to compose additional music for such shows as Lost in Space and, most notably, for Peyton Place. He composed his first film score for Cold Turkey (1971), the funny story of an entire town that tries to quit smoking. He did not score another film until Ragtime (1981). The lovely waltzes he composed for this film earned Newman his first Oscar nomination. Over the next few years, he would receive numerous other Academy Award nominations, including one for the song "Make Up Your Mind" that was heard in Ron Howard's The Paper. Finally, after years of writing memorable songs for some of Hollywood's best-loved films, Newman took home a Best Song Oscar for "If I Didn't Have You" from the computer animated film Monsters, Inc. Newman also tried his hand at screenwriting when he collaborated on the script for John Landis' Western spoof The Three Amigos (1986). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

 
Wikipedia: Randy Newman
Randy Newman
Birth name Randall Stuart Newman
Born November 28 1943 (1943--) (age 63)
Origin Los Angeles, California
Genre(s) Pop, film scores
Occupation(s) songwriter, arranger, singer, pianist
Years active 1961 – present
Website RandyNewman.com

Randall Stuart "Randy" Newman (born November 28, 1943) is an Academy Award- winning American songwriter, arranger, composer, singer and pianist who is notable for his mordant (and often satirical) pop songs and for his many film scores.

Newman is noted for his practice of writing lyrics from the perspective of a "character" far removed from Newman's own biography, often utilizing the literary device of an unreliable narrator. For example, the 1972 song "Sail Away" is written as slave trader's sales pitch to attract slaves, while the narrator of "Political Science" is a U.S. nationalist who complains of worldwide ingratitude toward America and proposes a brutally ironic final solution ("Let's drop the big one").

Since the 1980s, Newman has worked mostly as a film composer. His film scores include Ragtime, The Natural, Toy Story, Meet the Parents and Seabiscuit. He also scored four other Pixar films: A Bugs Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., and Cars.

He has also been singled out for a number of awards by his colleagues, including an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, four Grammy Awards, and the Governor's Award of the recording academy.[1] Randy Newman was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2002.

Biography

Born in Los Angeles, California, as an infant Newman moved with his Jewish-American family to New Orleans, Louisiana, where his mother's family lived. He lived in New Orleans as a small child and spent summers there until he was eleven years old, his family having by then returned to Los Angeles. The paternal side of his family includes three uncles who were noted Hollywood film-score composers: Alfred Newman, Lionel Newman and Emil Newman. Newman's cousins Thomas, David, and Joey are also composers for motion pictures. Graduated from University High, Los Angeles. Newman attended the University of California, Los Angeles.

Songwriter

Newman became a professional songwriter by the time he was seventeen; his first single as a performer was 1961's "Golden Gridiron Boy", released when he was eighteen. However, the single flopped and Newman chose to concentrate on songwriting and arranging for the next several years. His early songs were recorded by Gene Pitney, Jerry Butler, The O'Jays and Irma Thomas, among others.

In the mid-1960s, Newman was briefly a member of the band The Tikis, who later became Harpers Bizarre, best known for their 1967 hit version of the Paul Simon composition "Feelin' Groovy." Newman kept a close musical relationship with Harpers Bizarre, offering them some of his own compositions, including "Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear" (later covered by Alan Price, formerly of The Animals, and also performed by Scooter and Fozzie Bear on the very first episode of The Muppet Show), and "Happyland". Alan Price, who had left The Animals and formed Alan Price Set in England was one of Newman's earliest champions. Besides the aforementioned hit "Simon Smith and His Amazing Dancing Bear", he featured 7 Randy Newman songs on his 1967 "A Price On His Head" album. (7 out of 14 tracks!)

His 1968 debut album, Randy Newman, was a critical success but never dented the Billboard Top 200. Its ambitious arrangements didn't necessarily match with Newman's embryonic vocal style, but his strengths as a songwriter were already evident. The acidic but painfully sad 'Davy The Fat Boy' and the moving 'Cowboy' (written for but rejected from 'Midnight Cowboy') were standouts. Many artists, including Alan Price, Judy Collins, the Everly Brothers, Dusty Springfield, Pat Boone and Peggy Lee, covered his songs and 'I Think It's Going To Rain Today' became an early standard. In 1970, Harry Nilsson recorded an entire album of Newman compositions called Nilsson Sings Newman. That album was a success, and it paved the way for Newman's 1970 release, 12 Songs, which abandoned the elaborate arrangements of his first album for a more stripped-down sound that showcased Newman's piano. Ry Cooder's slide guitar and contributions from Byrds members Gene Parsons and Clarence White helped to give the album a much rootsier feel. 12 Songs was also critically acclaimed (6th best album of the seventies according to Rolling Stone critic Robert Christgau), but again found little commercial success, though Three Dog Night made a huge hit of his "Mama Told Me Not to Come". The following year, Randy Newman Live cemented his cult following and became his first LP to appear in the Billboard charts, at #191.

1972's Sail Away reached #163 on Billboard, with the title track making its way into the repertoire of Ray Charles and Linda Ronstadt. "You Can Leave Your Hat On," written from the point of view of an ineffectual sexual fetishist, was covered by Joe Cocker and later, by Keb Mo, Tom Jones, Three Dog Night and Etta James. The album also featured "Burn On": an ode to that infamous night in Cleveland when the heavily polluted Cuyahoga River literally caught fire. In 1989, "Burn On" was used as the opening theme to the film Major League, whose focus was the hapless Cleveland Indians.

Two of the songs on Sail Away, "Political Science" and "God's Song" are as caustic as anything Newman has ever written. The former lampoons American arrogance and states that since the US is hated the world over, it might as well "drop the big one," incinerating every other nation (with the exception of Australia). In the latter song, also covered by Etta James, Newman takes on religion by assuming the voice of God: "I burn down your cities - how blind you must be/I take from you your children and you say 'How blessed are we'/You must all be crazy to put your faith in me/That's why I love mankind."

His 1974 release Good Old Boys was a set of songs about the American South; "Rednecks" began with a description of segregationist Lester Maddox pitted against a "smart-ass New York Jew" on a TV show, in a song that seems to criticize both southern racism and the complacent bigotry of American northeasterners who stereotype all southerners as racist. This ambiguity was also apparent on "Kingfish" and "Every Man a King", the former a paean to Huey Long (the assassinated former Governor of, and United States Senator for, the State of Louisiana), the other a campaign song written by Long himself. An album that received lavish critical praise, Good Old Boys also became a commercial breakthrough for Newman, peaking at #36 on Billboard and spending 21 weeks in the Top 200.

Little Criminals (1977) contained the surprise hit "Short People", which also became a subject of controversy, as Newman's ironic depiction of bigotry aimed at the short was taken literally by some listeners. Both the album and the single stand as the best-selling of his career. In 1978, legislation was introduced to make playing the song on the radio illegal in Maryland, though the bill failed to pass. Newman often pokes fun at the misinterpretation of his song during concerts, sarcastically announcing, "I hate short people, it's true. The reason I don't say anything is because the record label's afraid I'll tell people what I really think." 1979's Born Again was a prescient commentary on the money-worship of the coming era of Reaganomics, which also featured a song satirically mythologizing the Electric Light Orchestra (and their arranging style) entitled "The Story of a Rock and Roll Band". The album failed to capitalize on the commercial success of "Short People" but did include some of his strongest and most underrated material - most notably "Ghosts", an achingly sad 'apology' from a lonely old man and "Girls In My Life Part One", a dubious catalogue of amorous boasts from a naive young man.

His 1983 album Trouble in Paradise included the hit single "I Love L.A.," a song that has been interpreted as both praising and critiquing its subject, in this case, Los Angeles. This ambivalence is borne out by Newman's own comments on the song. As he explained in a 2001 interview, "There's some kind of ignorance L.A. has that I'm proud of. The open car and the redhead, the Beach Boys... that sounds 'really' good to me." The ABC network and Frank Gari Productions transformed "I Love L.A." into an extremely popular '80s TV promotional campaign, retooling the lyrics and title to "You'll Love It! (on ABC)". The album featured some of his strongest material - "Real Emotional Girl" was a disturbingly frank portrait of a relationship, sung from the male point of view while "Same Girl" told of the love affair between two junkies, and its inevitable and desperate final days.

In the years following Trouble in Paradise, Randy focussed more on film work, but his personal life entered a difficult period. He split from his wife of nearly twenty years, Roswitha, and was diagnosed with the physically debilitating Epstein-Barr virus. He has released two albums of new material as a singer-songwriter since that time: Land of Dreams (1988) and Bad Love (1999). The former featured Newman's first stab at autobiography with "Dixie Flyer" and "Four Eyes", while the latter included "I Miss You", a moving tribute to his ex-wife. He has also re-recorded a number of his earlier songs, accompanying himself on piano, as The Randy Newman Songbook Vol. 1 (2003), and continues to perform his songs before live audiences as a touring concert artist.

In the aftermath of the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe of 2005, Newman's "Louisiana 1927," about the inadequate government response to an earlier flood in the American south, spontaneously became an anthem, played heavily on a wide range of American radio and television stations, in both Newman's 1974 original, as well as Aaron Neville's cover version of the song.

During a European tour in the summer of 2006, Newman premiered three new songs: "Potholes in Memory Lane" (a straight blues song about losing your memory when you get older), "Missing You" (a love ballad), and the politically controversial "A Few Words in Defense of Our Country". The latter was released as an mp3 single in February 2007. It favorably compares the leaders of the United States to those of previous empires, although it criticizes the War on Terror and the Supreme Court, and posits that "this empire is ending like all the rest." The song is available through his website [1]. Some other new songs that Newman has been working on include "Easy Street", "Fat and Angry", and a song about the 20th century.

Film composer

Newman's work as a film composer began in 1971, with his work on the Norman Lear satire Cold Turkey. He returned to film work with 1981's Ragtime, for which he was nominated for two Academy Awards. Newman co-wrote the 1986 film ¡Three Amigos! with Steve Martin and Lorne Michaels, wrote three songs for the film, and provided the voice for the singing bush.

Newman scored the first four Disney/Pixar feature films; Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, and Monsters, Inc. He also scored the 1996 film James and the Giant Peach and the 2006 Disney/Pixar film Cars. Additional scores by Newman include Avalon, Parenthood, Seabiscuit, Awakenings, The Paper, Overboard, Meet the Parents, and its sequel, Meet the Fockers. His score for Pleasantville was an Academy Award nominee. He also wrote the songs for Turner's Cats Don't Dance.

One of Newman's most iconic and recognizable works is the central theme to The Natural, a dramatic and Oscar-nominated score, which was described by at least one complimentary critic as "Coplandesque."

Newman had the dubious distinction of receiving the most Oscar nominations (fifteen) without a single win. His streak was broken when he received the Oscar for Best Song in 2001, for the Monsters Inc. song "If I Didn't Have You", beating the likes of Enya and Paul McCartney. After receiving an enthusiastic standing ovation, a bemused but emotional Newman began his acceptance speech with "I don't want your pity!"

Besides writing songs for films, he also writes songs for television series such as the Emmy-Award winning current theme song of Monk, "It's a Jungle out There"

In October 2006 it was revealed that Randy Newman will be writing the music to an upcoming Walt Disney movie called The Princess and the Frog, which is scheduled for release in 2009. During the Walt Disney Company's annual shareholder meeting in March 2007, Randy Newman performed a new song written for the movie. He was accompanied by the Dirty Dozen Brass Band.

Musical theater

In the 1990s, Newman adapted Goethe's Faust into a concept album and musical, Randy Newman's Faust. After a 1995 staging at the La Jolla Playhouse, he retained David Mamet to help rework the book before its relaunch on the Chicago Goodman Theatre mainstage in 1996. Newman's Faust project had been many years in the making, and it suffered for it; a central joke was Newman's depiction of Faust as a shallow heavy metal music fan in thrall to Satan, and this had to be modified to accommodate the less-than-devil obsessed age of grunge rock that was in fashion by 1995.

In 2000 South Coast Repertory produced The Education of Randy Newman, a musical theater piece which recreates the life of a songwriter who bears some resemblance to the actual Newman. Set in New Orleans and Los Angeles, it was modeled on the celebrated American autobiography, The Education of Henry Adams. Newman, together with Jerry Patch and Michael Roth, surveyed Newman's songs to find those which, taken together, depict the life of an American artist in the last half of the 20th century. After its premiere at SCR, it was reworked with additional songs written specifically for the show by Newman and presented in Seattle by ACT.

Selected discography


Main article: Randy Newman discography

Notable recordings of Randy Newman compositions

Awards and nominations

  • Golden Globe
    • 2000: Nominee - Original Song - "When She Loved Me" - Toy Story 2
    • 1999: Nominee - Original Score - A Bug's Life
    • 1996: Nominee - Original Song - "You've Got a Friend" - Toy Story
    • 1991: Nominee - Original Score - Avalon
    • 1990: Nominee - Original Song - "I Love to See You Smile" - Parenthood
    • 1982: Nominee - Original Song - "One More Hour" - Ragtime
  • Grammy
    • 2007: Winner - Song Written for Motion Picture or Television - "