Randy Newman
Live

THE REVIEW

Not many artists can make me cry with a song: Randy Newman is one of them.

It happened just a few days ago, while I was listening on YouTube to a version of "Feels Like Home" sung by Chantal Kreviazuk; the piece originally appeared on "Faust," and was sung by another fascinating lady, Bonnie Raitt. However, it is not "Faust" that I want to talk about today; the premise was necessary to assert that only geniuses can make me cry with a piece (Tom Waits, for example), and that Randy Newman truly is a genius, so his entire work deserves attention.

I do not know the first 2 albums of RN but I recently procured the third, "Live," recorded over 3 evenings in September 197_, in front of a sparse but attentive and knowledgeable audience, as evidenced by some audience members requesting songs that were still unreleased on records at the time.

The short album's setlist (just 32 minutes for 14 tracks, including banter between songs) includes tracks from the first and second albums, two unreleased songs, and two that would later be part of the great masterpiece "Sail Away" of 1972, namely "Last Night I Had A Dream" and "Lonely At The Top"; remember that the second was written for and then rejected by Frank Sinatra, perhaps due to the disenchanted and sharp sarcasm that permeates its lyrics, a common trait in RN's early work.

Indeed, it is on sarcasm and the amused derision of the public and private ugliness of his fellow countrymen and others that RN builds his poetics, sparing neither the U.S. administration, nor slave owners, blacks, Chinese, rednecks, fat kids, preachers, ignorant masses, nor even himself.

The music accompanying the lyrics is often cheerful and vaguely "vaudeville", presented in brief sketches that in many cases do not exceed 2 minutes in length, but still allow time to understand that the first to feel compassion for his characters is the musician himself.

Together with the lyrics and music, the narrating voice creates a surreal atmosphere, with its mocking and almost satyr-like tone, perhaps not pleasant on first listen but certainly functional to the goal; a bit like Dylan, Newman does not have a beautiful voice, but he is certainly the best at presenting his own repertoire.

Among the tracks, the aforementioned "Lonely At The Top" definitely stands out, a true summation of Newman's work up to that point and the first sign of the great things to come.