Randy Newman will perform at the new ACL Live at Austin's Moody Theater on September 19; the show will be recorded for future broadcast on PBS's Austin City Limits, launching its 37th season this fall. American Songwriter gives his new album four-and-a-half stars. "You can hardly make a better case that songs can be the equal of any art form than the classics on display in The Randy Newman Songbook Vol. 2. The album is essential listening for those who care about American music (not just the popular variety)." The Los Angeles Times says that, "like a Picasso line drawing, he can convey mountains of emotion with the simplest of notes, chords and melodic lines ... In committing the bare bones versions to disc, he's preserved them for the ages, which is where they belong."
Randy Newman will perform before a live studio studio audience at the new ACL Live at The Moody Theater in downtown Austin, Texas, on Monday, September 19. The performance comes a day after Newman's performance at the Austin City Limits festival in Zilker Park and will be recorded for future broadcast on PBS's Austin City Limits, launching its 37th season this fall (air date to be announced). Upcoming tapings also include sessions with Joanna Newsom, The Decemberists, Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, Jeff Bridges, and Arcade Fire. For more information, visit austincitylimits.org.
On his latest album, the Randy Newman Songbook Vol. 2, Newman takes a fresh look at both classic and more recent work in new solo piano-and-vocal takes on 16 of his celebrated songs, surveying 40 years of recordings.
With Newman alone at the piano, "like a Picasso line drawing, he can convey mountains of emotion with the simplest of notes, chords and melodic lines," writes Los Angeles Times music critic Randy Lewis.
"In committing the bare bones versions to disc, he's preserved them for the ages, which is where they belong," Lewis asserts. "[T]hese renditions magically demonstrate that even minus seemingly half the ingredients, Newman's wit, empathy and insight aren't diminished one iota."
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American Songwriter gives the album four-and-a-half stars.
"You can hardly make a better case that songs can be the equal of any art form than the classics on display in The Randy Newman Songbook Vol. 2," exclaims American Songwriter's Allen Morrison. "The album is essential listening for those who care about American music (not just the popular variety). For younger listeners who might as yet be unfamiliar with his pre-Toy Story repertoire, these tracks might be a revelation."
Newman "remains the closest thing songwriting has had to a Dickens or a Twain," Morrison asserts. "His composing and his piano style have antecedents as fundamental to American music as Stephen Foster, Aaron Copland, and the entire New Orleans tradition from Scott Joplin to Fats Domino to Dr. John—yet he has long since established a style that is instantly recognizable as his own."
Like Lewis, Morrison recognizes the value of the solo renditions of Newman's songs in the Songbook series in showcasing Newman's unique songwriting talents.
"Although his songs have been covered over the years by dozens of artists from Joe Cocker and Tom Jones to Judy Collins and Linda Ronstadt," Morrison concludes, "as a performer of his own material nobody can come close to the way he fully inhabits his diverse cast of characters."
Read the complete review at americansongwriter.com.
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To pick up a copy of the new Songbook Vol. 2 or the previous volume, head to the Nonesuch Store, where orders include high-quality, 320 kbps MP3s of the album at checkout.
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