Randy Newman started strolling through his back pages for Nonesuch in 2003 following a commercially disappointing stint at DreamWorks, the mega-label that never was. Recorded while Newman labored on songs that would become 2008’s Harps and Angels, The Randy Newman Songbook, Vol. 1 also provided some insight on what the composer considered to be his canon.
Bypassing his 1977 neo-novelty hit “Short People,” along with anything else a wider audience may know, he concentrated on songs other singers covered. Among those featured were “I Think It’s Going to Rain Today,” a ’60s standard sung by everyone from Dusty Springfield to Leonard Nimoy; “You Can Leave Your Hat on,” a big hit for Joe Cocker; and “Sail Away,” previously by Bobby Darin, Linda Ronstadt, and Ray Charles. Newman trod lightly upon his soundtrack work and offered just enough cynical jokes to offset the beautiful melancholy of the ballads. The spartan arrangements helped showcase not only his songcraft—his wry lyrical turns, how the verses interlocked with the bridges—but also Newman’s musicianship, how he slurs his vocals in a manner not dissimilar to his New Orleans barrelhouse piano roll.
*The Randy Newman Songbook, Vol. 2, *released in 2011, emphasized sly, laconic performances, possibly because Randy’s longtime associate Lenny Waronker signed on as a co-producer with Mitchell Froom. Either way, Vol. 2 lacked the austere overtones of the first, as does 2016’s brand-new The Randy Newman Songbook, Vol. 3. Such playful laziness is an attribute here because Newman finally revisits the Randy Newman songs you know if you don’t know Randy Newman.
First up is “Short People,” a song he once dismissed as a “bad break,” followed by Three Dog Night’s “Mama Told Me (Not to Come),” the Toy Story theme “You’ve Got a Friend in Me,” “I Love to See You Smile” from *Parenthood *that later worked its way into a Colgate commercial, and “Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear,” which Scooter once performed with Fozzie Bear on “The Muppet Show.” It’s the sunny side of Newman. However, the spartan arrangements and light touch on Vol. 3 undercut the sentimentality and whimsy since they’re executed with the same sense of mischief as the idiosyncratic renditions of deep cuts on Vol. 2.
Such aesthetic continuity becomes evident on the four-LP collection The Randy Newman Songbook, which consolidates and reshuffles all three albums, adding five exclusive bonus tracks to the whole shebang (initially available as a vinyl-only set, the box will later be released on CD and as a download). Allegedly reassembled according to theme, the four LPs still roughly correspond to the sequencing of the three initial volumes, which means it gains momentum as it progresses, with buoyancy eventually overtaking precision.
As the four albums play, a whirl of character sketches, satire, sincerity, and heartbreak float by, the work of a writer who values economy over all else. But most impressive is how Newman plays with and rearranges his own songs. Sometimes he finds them so perfectly crafted he can’t stray from his original template, other times he gives them a distinctly different spin. Take “Rollin’,” the bittersweet conclusion to 1974’s Good Old Boys newly recorded for Vol. 3. As a bemused antithesis to the gloss of “I Love L.A.,” its irony shines as bright as Newman’s earnest love for his hometown.
The ease of *Vol. 3 *allows it to stand on its own as straight-up entertainment, but better to take the four-LP box as a whole. It captures so many different elements of Newman in one hefty set. But don’t mistake these latter-day renditions for the definitive versions. For some reason or another, Newman hasn’t gotten around to revisiting a few major songs off his ’70s albums, which were masterpieces of the golden age of major labels, exquisitely produced that thrived on their California sheen. Instead, The Randy Newman Songbook, especially in its four-LP incarnation, is proof that a songbook isn’t something carved in concrete. It’s a living, breathing thing whose contents and meanings can change over time, even for its own author.
Correction: This review originally included a statement suggesting that Newman conceived Vol. 1 of the Songbook series to buy time while writing his album Harps and Angels. However, the conception of the Songbook series pre-dates his work on that album.
