Randy Newman | Artist
Randy Newman is an American singer-songwriter, arranger, composer, and pianist born 1943 in Los Angeles. Known for his idiosyncratic spoken-singing style and satirical lyrics, Newman is one of America's greatest songwriters and, more recently, film score composers. His hits as a recording artist include "Short People", "I Love L.A." and "You've Got a Friend in Me", while other artists have successfully covered his songs "Mama Told Me Not To Come" (Three Dog Night), "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" (Joe Cocker) and "You Can Leave Your Hat On" (Jess Roden). Born into an extended family of Hollywood film composers, Newman began his songwriting career at the age of 17, penning hits for acts such as the Fleetwoods, Cilla Black, Gene Pitney, and the Alan Price Set. In 1968, he made his formal debut as a solo artist with a self-titled album produced by Lenny Waronker and Van Dyke Parks. In the early '70s Newman release a string of four superb solo albums which established his artistry as a songwriter and recording artist, these were 12 Songs (1970), Sail Away (1972), Good Old Boys (1974) and Little Criminals (1977). He also pulled out one more classic solo album with the mid-career gem Bad Love in 1999. Newman's earliest scoring work was for television, creating background music for a 1962 episode of TV's The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, and later working briefly on the 1960s TV shows Lost in Space, Peyton Place and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Since the 1980s he has worked mostly as a film composer and has scored nine Disney-Pixar animated films, including all four Toy Story films (1995–2019), A Bug's Life (1998), both Monsters Inc. films (2001, 2013), and the first and third Cars films (2006, 2017), as well as Disney's James and the Giant Peach (1996) and The Princess and the Frog (2009). His other film scores include Cold Turkey (1971), Ragtime (1981), The Natural (1984), Awakenings (1990), Cats Don't Dance (1997), Pleasantville (1998), Meet the Parents (2000), Seabiscuit (2003), and Marriage Story (2019). He also co-wrote the 1986 film Three Amigos with Steve Martim and Lorne Michaels, wrote three songs for the film, and provided the voice for the singing bush. Newman has been nominated for 22 Academy Awards, winning two times, in 2002 for "If I Didn't Have You" from Monsters Inc., and again in 2011 for "We Belong Together" from Toy Story 3. He has received three Emmy's, seven Grammy's and was inducted into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame in 2002. Newman is also a keen satirist, cleverly exposing hypocrisy and stupidity in his song lyrics, in a similar manner to Tom Lehrer. He has written scathing satirical songs about Donald Trump's penis, and the song "Putin" about Vladimir Putin. He also wrote a song supporting President Obama's re-election called, "I'm Dreaming of a White President".
Artist Website: randynewman.com
Featured Albums: Randy Newman
