Randy Newman is the eponymous debut studio album by American singer-songwriter Randy Newman, released in 1968 by Reprise Records. Unlike his later albums, which featured Newman and his piano backed by guitar, bass guitar and drums, Randy Newman was highly orchestral and aimed to blend the orchestra with Newman's voice and piano. Randy Newman never dented the Billboard Top 200 and was not received as well by critics as Newman's acclaimed 1970s albums 12 Songs, Sail Away and Good Old Boys; indeed, according to Ken Tucker, the album sold so poorly that Warner offered buyers the opportunity to trade the album for another in the company's catalog.Randy Newman was out of print for over 15 years until it was re-released on CD in 1995. It was remastered by Lee Herschberg. The album is sometimes referred to as Randy Newman Creates Something New Under The Sun, which was written on the reverse of the album sleeve. In 2017, Randy Newman was ranked the 97th greatest album of the 1960s by Pitchfork.
Details
Newman later commented on the lack of influence from rock and roll on the album.
"It's like I'd never heard The Rolling Stones. I thought you could move things along just with the orchestra, that it was somehow cheating to use drums. What Van Dyke and I, and Harry Nilsson to some degree, were doing, it was like a branch of homo sapiens that didn't become homo sapiens. Homo erectus," he said.
Newman said in 2017, that he signed away the publishing rights on his first album, doesn't see any money from people doing covers of those songs and advised people getting into the business to never sign away their publishing.
Previous versions of songs on this album
As with many of Newman's early albums, several Newman-penned songs had been previously recorded by other artists.
"I Think It's Going to Rain Today", was originally recorded and released by Julius LaRosa in 1966. It had also been covered in 1966/67 by Judy Collins, Eric Burdon, and others.
"Living Without You" was issued as a single by Keith Shields in February 1967. "Living Without You" was also featured on the "Uncle Charlie & His Dog Teddy" album by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.
"Love Story" was released as a single by The Brothers in August 1967. It was also recorded by Peggy Lee, Harry Nilson, on Nilsson Sings Newman, Liza Minnelli, on Come Saturday Morning and on a 1971 duet album by Glen Campbell and Anne Murray.
"So Long Dad" was released as a single by Manfred Mann in September 1967.
The Alan Price Set issued recordings of "Living Without You", "Bet No One Ever Hurt This Bad" and "So Long Dad" on their 1967 album A Price On His Head.
Singles
"I Think It's Going to Rain Today" b/w "The Beehive State" was issued as a single on Reprise 0284. Reprise also issued this single on a promotional 10" vinyl 78 rpm record as the first release under their proposed "Reprise Speed Series" of 78 RPM releases.
Reception
Rolling Stone noted, "the mood of a bitter longing for affection that characterizes the album. Denny Cordell has called Randy “the foremost practitioner of suburban blues,” and certainly “Love Story” is the blues of Middle America. The song marks out a simple pattern of life: boy meets girl, gets married, lives in suburbia, has children, dies. Randy moves in on The Dream in an uncommon way: “When our kids are grown/They’ll send us away to a little home in Florida/ We’ll play checkers all day/Till we pass away.”"
Legacy
Critic Ellen Willis feels that the songs on the album, "show an intimate familiarity with, and an affection for, all the nuances of American life - the setting and characters, the family relationships, the romantic fantasies, the euphemisms - as well as an unsparing awareness of our oppression of old people, fat people, and other nonmainstream types." William Ruhlmann in an AllMusic retrospective review feels that Newman's lyrics are "intent upon taking clichés and using them to satirize social conventions, a popular parlor game in the late '60s." Overall he considers the album "an audacious first album by a major, if extremely quirky, talent." In 2000 it was voted number 716 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums.
