Randy Newman
80 articles
Free articles
Randy Newman: 'I'd Like to Have a Hit'
Interview by Rob Partridge, Melody Maker, 15 June 1974
Randy Newman may have an image problem — but he's got an impeccable track record. America's great songwriter talks to Robert Partridge ...
The Devil Made Him Do It: Randy Newman
Interview by Roy Trakin, Addicted To Noise, 31 October 1995
"IT'S HARD TO keep a good man down" goes the refrain to one of the songs on Randy Newman's musical version of the Goethe tale, ...
Audio interviews
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages Audio, 6 November 1995
The Great American Songwriter talks about his childhood, being a perennial outsider, life on Warners, the American South, racism, Los Angeles, Faust and much more
File format: mp3; in 2 parts, total file sizes: 69.8meg, total interview length: 1h 16' 17", sound quality: ***
Interview by Paul Zollo, Rock's Backpages Audio, 12 December 2005
The great songwriter, sat at the piano, tells the stories behind the songs: writing in character; geography, the "untrustworthy narrator". Interviewer Zollo plays the tracks in question.
File format: mp3; file size: 108.7mb, interview length: 1h 58' 43" sound quality: *****
List of articles in the library
Cilla Black: "The Song My Mum Doesn't Like"
Interview by Peter Jones, Record Mirror, 1 May 1965
WHAT I asked Cilla Black was what she thought of the controversy surrounding her latest single, 'I've Been Wrong Before'. And a Liverpool accent which ...
Randy Newman: Hit-Maker Randy Can't Stand His Voice!
Interview by Peter Jones, Record Mirror, 25 January 1969
THE BEATLES are steadfast admirers of the songwriting talents of Randy Newman. Other artistes have reason to be grateful for his songs — like Cilla ...
Randy Newman: The Man They All Dig Doesn't Dig Himself
Interview by Royston Eldridge, Melody Maker, 25 January 1969
BEATLE PAUL McCartney phoned to say how much he likes his work; Frank Sinatra wants him to write an album but the man himself doesn't ...
Hyped By Your Heroes: Bob Dylan, Randy Newman
Comment by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, 25 July 1970
THE SUMMER of 1970 will go down in the history books as the time when the music of the period finally let loose the truth ...
Various Artists: Performance (Warner Bros.)
Review by Mike Gormley, Detroit Free Press, 9 August 1970
PERFORMANCE IS the movie starring Mick Jagger. Don't get it mixed up with Ned Kelly, the other Jagger starrer. Performance unlike Ned Kelly is supposed ...
Randy Newman: In Praise of the Ten Second Song
Comment by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, 19 December 1970
THE MOST influential record of 1970 was the Edwin Hawkins' Singers' 'Oh Happy Day', which came out in 1969. It takes a while for people ...
Randy Newman: Having Fun But Not Making A Habit Of It
Interview by Bud Scoppa, Sounds, 19 June 1971
WHEN RANDY Newman finally decided to become a performer rather than continue his career as a sequestered genius — "I was surprised when I did ...
Randy Newman: Lonely at the Top
Interview by Michael Watts, Melody Maker, 21 August 1971
PEOPLE STILL talk of the press reception for Randy Newman. ...
Randy Newman, Ian Matthews: The Troubadour, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Colman Andrews, Phonograph Record, November 1971
RANDY NEWMAN looks like a kid you used to know in high school — the one who always read Scientific American and got A's in trig. Which ...
Randy Newman: Randy Newman Live
Review by Felix Dennis, Ink, 16 November 1971
STRUCTURALLY, harmonically and lyrically Randy Newman's music little short of an economic miracle, comparing favorably to the late Son of God's number with the loaves ...
Profile and Interview by Steve Turner, Beat Instrumental, February 1972
The name of Randy Newman kept cropping up in the interviews I wrote for Beat Instrumental. First of all it was Keith Reid who claimed ...
Randy Newman: Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Michael Watts, Melody Maker, 11 March 1972
WITH AN awkward shuffle and an embarrassed wave to the adulating audience, Randy Newman left the stage of the Festival Hall, London, on Monday night ...
Randy Newman: Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Keith Altham, New Musical Express, 11 March 1972
ANYONE WHO considers sarcasm the lowest form of wit has not heard the heights to which Randy Newman has raised the art during a live ...
Randy Newman: Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Jerry Gilbert, Sounds, 18 March 1972
NEWMAN GIVING HIS ALL ...
Randy Newman: The Troubadour, Los Angeles CA.
Live Review by Richard Cromelin, Phonograph Record, July 1972
THIS GUY GAVE me a ride once, back when I was going to UCLA. He was pretty laconic, but under my expert employment of hitchhiker's ...
Randy Newman: Sail Away (Reprise)
Review by Tony Stewart, New Musical Express, 12 August 1972
RANDY NEWMAN AND ACID OBSERVATIONS ...
Review by Mark Leviton, Words & Music, September 1972
Randy Newman deals with subjects and values that are all but forgotten in contemporary pop music, reflecting in his ironic, witty songs some profundities which ...
Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 9 December 1972
On himself, BEEFHEART and RANDY NEWMAN — and backing JAGGER by remote control. ...
Live Review by Steve Turner, New Musical Express, 8 June 1974
Randy Newman: Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London ...
Randy Newman: Aw, forget it. Just ask me my favourite colour…
Profile by Steve Turner, New Musical Express, 15 June 1974
Randy Newman says he’s not an over-indulgent cynic. He also says he’s sick of folks asking him silly questions. After all, Dylan’s said he likes ...
What Does It Feel Like to Create Today's Music?
Interview by Loraine Alterman, Family Weekly, 21 July 1974
"I guess there are some people who sit down and say, 'All right, I want to write a hit single. Let's see, what's a big item ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 5 October 1974
"A VINDICATION of the South?" Hey Randy – y'all gon' lay A CONCEPT ALBUM on us? Yeeee-haw! ...
Randy Newman: Good Old Boys (Reprise); John Sebastian: Tarzana Kid (Reprise)
Review by Loraine Alterman, The New York Times, 6 October 1974
The Songwriter Sings ...
Review by Tom Nolan, Phonograph Record, November 1974
RANDY NEWMAN'S new record is all about the South, a concept album of sorts which stops short of operatic unity but which does exist in ...
Book Excerpt by Bruce Pollock, In Their Own Words (Collier Books), 1975
SLOWLY BUT SURELY, almost against his will, Randy Newman has become a legend in his own time – although not too many people know it, ...
Elton John: Greatest Hits; Randy Newman: Good Old Boys; Pete Atkin: Secret Drinker
Review by Simon Frith, Let It Rock, January 1975
Randy Newman’s album starts:‘Last night I saw Lester Maddox on a TV showwith some smartass New York Jewand the Jew laughed at Lester MaddoxAnd the ...
Randy Newman: Good Old Boys (Reprise MS 2193)
Review by Susin Shapiro, Crawdaddy!, January 1975
RANDY NEWMAN has never been one to woo the predictable or cling to the musical status quo for inspiration. In his sleep-soaked tousled tenor he ...
Randy Newman: Little Criminals
Review by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 29 October 1977
ON THE SLEEVE, Randy Newman looks as dour as one of the rednecks he dissected with such fiendish accuracy in his last studio album, Good ...
Randy Newman: Inside The Criminal Mind
Report and Interview by Fred Schruers, Crawdaddy!, December 1977
EAST BATON Rouge Parish, LA. — "I wasn't unhappy. I didn't feel guilty about it. I just didn't do anything for three years." ...
Randy Newman: Randy Takes The Fifth Amendment
Interview by Brian Case, New Musical Express, 10 June 1978
RANDY NEWMAN talks to BRIAN CASE...but BRIAN CASE does the talking ...
Randy Newman: Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London
Live Review by Barbara Charone, Sounds, 10 June 1978
RANDY NEWMAN just might be the only artist in the whole of the music business capable of getting bedsores from live performances. Noted for his ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 17 June 1978
AFTER THE show there was a photo session in a back-room of the theatre. Randy walked in and, since there was no other reason for ...
Randy Newman: Born Again (Warner Bros K56663)
Review by Michael Watts, Melody Maker, 25 August 1979
HOW IS IT that Born Again should be Randy Newman's worst album to date, and yet his most marketable? For a start, it is topically ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, December 1979
AFTER FIVE ALBUMS and almost ten years of intermittent brilliance, Randy Newman achieves a number one single with a nastily amusing ditty. ...
Randy Newman: Dominion Theatre, London
Live Review by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 8 December 1979
RANDY NEWMAN was wandering around backstage at the Dominion gazing disconsolately down. "Why doesn't anyone like my ELO song?" he kept asking no one in ...
Randy Newman: Standing Up For The Small Man
Interview by Paul Rambali, New Musical Express, 8 December 1979
THERE ARE hotels and there are hotels. And then there are hotels like Claridge's, an elegant art deco reminder of the pre-war age of luxury ...
Comment by J. Kordosh, Creem, July 1980
They were six fine English boys Who knew each other in Birmingham They bought a drum and guitar Started a rock-roll band. ...
Randy Newman: Ragtime to Riches
Interview by Mark Leviton, BAM, 15 January 1982
EVER SINCE his 1968 debut album, many have considered Randy Newman one of the greatest songwriters in America. ...
Randy Newman: Laughter in Paradise
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 29 January 1983
Punk, people, performing and parenthood – Randy Newman talked about his life, work and hates to Richard Cook ...
Interview by John Hutchinson, unpublished, February 1983
JH: Was there any family influence on your decision to be a musician? Your uncles wrote movie music, didn't they? ...
Backbeat: Randy Newman's Coming-Out Party
Interview by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, April 1983
Called a recluse and a bigot by some, Newman has more to say than most "confessional" singer/songwriters. ...
Randy Newman: Setting a Standard for Pop Songwriting
Profile and Interview by David Gans, Mix, May 1983
EVERYBODY'S GOT his own definition of paradise, and every paradise has its troubles. Randy Newman's new album, Trouble in Paradise, takes this notion and examines ...
Randy Newman: The Natural Soundtrack (Warner Bros.)
Review by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 13 July 1984
WHEN IT COMES to capturing the flavor of America at various points in this century, few songwriters have been able to do it as well ...
Randy Newman: The Star And Snipes
Interview by Mark Cooper, The Guardian, 22 May 1987
Mark Cooper talks to Randy Newman, standard bearer against the smug and prejudiced ...
Randy Newman: Lonely At The Top (WEA)
Review by David Quantick, New Musical Express, 30 May 1987
"Let's drop the big one..." ...
Randy Newman: The Back Room Boy
Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, Q, August 1987
"There's no excuse at all. It's just bad career planning, bad work habits, bad discipline...and I keep doin' it." ...
Randy Newman: Still Grouchy After All These Years
Interview by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 22 September 1988
Randy Newman has overcome Epstein-Barr and has made another brilliant album. But that doesn't mean he's happy. ...
Randy Newman And Mark Knopfler: Newman's Navigator to A Land of Dreams
Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 21 October 1988
'IT'S MONEY That Matters', the first single from Land of Dreams, bristles with guitarist Mark Knopfler's trademark guitar licks, Randy Newman a la Dire Straits' ...
Randy Newman: A Nightmare on Main Street
Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 21 October 1988
RANDY NEWMAN was sitting in the Forum Arena in Inglewood a while ago, watching the Lakers put on yet another basketball clinic at the expense ...
Randy Newman: Pop's Mark Twain Continues to Mix the Oil With the Vinegar
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, November 1988
EVERY FIVE years or so, Randy Newman gets a little famous. Back in 1972, he recorded 'Sail Away', a song that grew so much in ...
Randy Newman: Coach House, San Juan Capistrano, CA
Live Review by Holly Gleason, Rolling Stone, 18 May 1989
Old Four Eyes Is Back ...
Comment by Mark Cooper, Q, January 1994
Randy Newman does not suffer fools gladly but surely he is currently pushing a point a little too far. ...
Lenny Waronker: All In The Family
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, July 1994
Warner Brothers President Lenny Waronker is not your Average Corporate Cheese ...
Thunderclap Newman: Randy, Poet Laureate of New Orleans
Interview by Chris Bourke, Real Groove, July 1994
I'VE ALWAYS WONDERED what Southerners think of Randy Newman's Good Old Boys, his 1974 concept album about the American Deep South. With its sardonic but ...
Randy Newman: London, Theatre Royal
Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, The Observer, 20 November 1994
IT'S HARD to believe that in 1968 Randy Newman claimed he was "very rarely propelled by any great desire to perform live". Especially hard when ...
Randy Newman: Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, January 1995
HE IS TEN SECONDS into his second song, 'Yellow Man', when a bank of spots from Miss Saigon bathes him in a hepatic yellow light. ...
Lenny Waronker: A Record Executive's Pride and Joy
Profile and Interview by Joel Selvin, San Francisco Chronicle, 4 June 1995
Warner Bros. re-releases Lenny Waronker's early masterpieces ...
Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, October 1995
IT’S BEEN A LONG TIME coming, but Newman’s Faust is finally here. Complete with choirs, orchestras, and stellar rock’n’roll guests, it’s surely the most ambitious ...
Randy Newman: "I Love You, You C**t!"
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, August 1998
THE FOLK singer Dave Van Ronk called him "the Hoagy Carmichael of the ’60s". His boyhood friend and longtime producer Lenny Waronker tagged him "King ...
Randy Newman: Here Comes The Rain
Retrospective by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, August 1998
Ian MacDonald salutes Randy Newman's first solo album as a flawless masterpiece. ...
Randy Newman: Guilty: 30 Years of Randy Newman
Review by Chris Ingham, MOJO, March 1999
NEWMAN FANS have been baying for this kind of set for a while, especially as the songwriter's back catalogue has been unavailable on CD for ...
Interview by Rob Tannenbaum, Rolling Stone, 19 August 1999
BEFORE ICE Cube, before Eric Bogosian, before Chris Rock, before the country was close to ready, Randy Newman wrote and sang thorny portraits of racists, ...
Is Randy Newman the Old Eminem?
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, September 2003
The funniest and least sentimental songwriter in America has revisited his back pages on The Randy Newman Songbook, Volume 1. BARNEY HOSKYNS asks him about ...
Randy Newman: He Shoots From The Lip
Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, September 2003
Randy Newman’s barbed-wire lyrics and arch social commentary are bang on today – and his new album proves it, says Robert Sandall ...
Randy Newman: The Randy Newman Songbook Vol. 1
Review by Chris Ingham, MOJO, October 2003
Excellent 18-song retrospective solo recital from one of the great individual singer-songwriters. ...
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, November 2003
RANDY NEWMAN, pop music's blackest humourist tells us why he's similar to Eminem, why make-up girls don't "get" him, and why he's just re-recorded a batch ...
Randy Newman: Overdue Renaissance Of A Whimsical Prophet
Live Review by Andrew Mueller, The Independent, 20 February 2004
Randy Newman: Barbican, London ...
Randy Newman: Koningin Elisabethzaal, Antwerp
Live Review by Gavin Martin, Uncut, April 2004
RANDY NEWMAN has elected to begin his 2004 solo tour of Europe on a Sunday night in Belgium, a country where his wry but devastating ...
Ostin-powered: The Mogul of Burbank
Book Excerpt by Barney Hoskyns, 'Hotel California' (4th Estate), 2005
Five adapted excerpts from Barney Hoskyns' 2005 book Hotel California that chart the rise of Warner-Reprise Records during the reign of its revered chief Mo ...
Audio transcript of interview by Paul Zollo, Rock's Backpages Audio, 12 December 2005
This is a transcript of Paul's audio interview with Randy. Hear the interview here ...
Review by Andrew Mueller, Uncut, August 2008
Back with a blinder after almost a decade. ...
Interview by Andrew Mueller, Uncut, September 2008
"CHRIST, I'M getting old," notes Randy Newman, distracted momentarily by his troublesome back. There is nothing, fortunately, wrong with his memory, as he trawls through ...
Randy Newman: Harps For Harps' Sake
Interview by Terry Staunton, Record Collector, September 2008
The new record is in the shops, but RANDY NEWMAN admits he has no excuses for his "ridiculous" output of three albums in 20 years. ...
School of Rock Study Guide: Singer-Songwriters
Guide by Barney Hoskyns, iTunes, October 2008
"WHERE DO YOU have left to go but in?" It was a question posed by Joni Mitchell, the brilliant Canadian blonde who specialized in intensely ...
Retrospective by Jim Irvin, The Word, February 2011
WHEN RANDY NEWMAN'S Little Criminals was released late in 1977, ending a three-year drought for the irony tsar of Tin Pan Alley, critics queued up ...
Randy Newman: I Am Newman, Hear Me Score
Interview by Steven R Rosen, Cincinnati CityBeat, 16 February 2011
RANDY NEWMAN'S foray into southwest Ohio this week, performing at Miami University's Middletown campus Saturday, is a rare treat. ...
back to LIBRARY
