Randy Newman is 77 years old today.
Newman is a singer-songwriter, arranger, composer and pianist who is known for his distinctive voice, mordant (and often satirical) pop songs and for film scores.
Since the 1980s, Newman has worked mostly as a film composer. His film scores include Ragtime, Awakenings, The Natural, Leatherheads, James and the Giant Peach, Meet the Parents, Cold Turkey, Seabiscuit and The Princess and the Frog.
He has scored seven Disney-Pixar films: Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., Cars, Toy Story 3 and Monsters University.
Newman has been nominated for 20 Academy Awards, winning twice. He has also won three Emmys, six Grammy Awards and the Governor's Award from the Recording Academy. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2002. In 2007, he was inducted as a Disney Legend.
Born in Los Angeles, Newman lived in New Orleans as a small child and spent summers there until he was 11 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. His cousins, Thomas and David, and nephew, Joey, are also composers for motion pictures.
Newman graduated from University High School in Los Angeles and attended the University of California in LA. His parents were both from Jewish families, but Newman's household was not observant. He has since become an atheist. Newman has been a professional songwriter since he was 17.
He cites Ray Charles as his greatest influence growing up, stating, "I loved Charles' music to excess." His first single as a performer was 1962's "Golden Gridiron Boy," released when he was eighteen. The single flopped and Newman chose to concentrate on songwriting and arranging for the next several years.
Newman has credited The Fleetwoods with giving him his first national break. The trio recorded his song, "They Tell Me It's Summer," as the “B” side of one of their hit singles, giving Newman great exposure and royalties.
Newman’s early songs were recorded by Gene Pitney, Jerry Butler, Petula Clark, Dusty Springfield, Jackie DeShannon, The O'Jays and Irma Thomas. His 1968 debut album, Randy Newman, was a critical success but never dented the Billboard Top 200.
Many artists, including Alan Price, Van Dyke Parks, Dave Van Ronk, Judy Collins, the Everly Brothers, Claudine Longet, Dusty Springfield, Nina Simone, Lynn Anderson, Wilson Pickett, Pat Boone and Peggy Lee, covered his songs and "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" became an early standard.
Newman’s 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 criticizes both southern racism and the complacent bigotry of Americans outside of the south who stereotype all southerners as racist yet ignore racism in northern and midwestern states and large cities.
This ambiguity was also apparent on "Kingfish" and "Every Man a King," the former a paean to Huey Long (the assassinated former Governor and United States Senator from 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.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Newman's "Louisiana 1927" became an anthem and was played heavily on a wide range of American radio and television stations, in both Newman's 1974 original and Aaron Neville's cover version of the song.
The song addresses the deceitful manner in which New Orleans's municipal government managed a flood in 1927, during which, as Newman asserts, "The guys who ran the Mardi Gras, the bosses in New Orleans decided the course of that flood. You know, they cut a hole in the levee and it flooded the cotton fields."