Harps and Angels

Description

Following the release of this years acclaimed album Dark Matter, Randy Newmans 2008 studio album, Harps And Angels, is now available for the first time on vinyl. It is, by turns, hilarious, poignant and scathingly satirical. As with much of the extraordinary material he has created over fifty years as a recording artist songs like Sail Away, Political Science, Rednecks, Short People, I Love L.A. Newman assumes the voice of an imagined character, often one of questionable reputation, eager to share his opinions. Harps And Angels often has an easy-going, Crescent City feel, with Newman on piano fronting a small combo and revealing, as Rolling Stone put it after the Carnegie Hall show, his serious love and study of the New Orleans piano tradition. The album was co-produced by Mitchell Froom (Crowded House, Los Lobos), who worked with Newman on 1999s Bad Love amongst others, and by Lenny Waronker, Newmans childhood friend, lifelong champion and the producer of his sublime early recordings.

After starting his songwriting career as a teenager, Newman began recording as a singer and pianist in 1968 with a self-titled album. Throughout the 1970s, he released several other acclaimed albums such as 12 Songs, Sail Away, and Good Old Boys. In addition to his solo recordings and regular international touring, Newman began composing and scoring for films in the 1980s. The list of movies he has worked on since then includes The Natural, Awakenings, Ragtime, all three Toy Story pictures, Seabiscuit, James and the Giant Peach, A Bugs Life, and most recently, Disney/Pixars Cars 3.

Between 2003 and 2016, Nonesuch released three volumes of The Randy Newman Songbook, comprising solo recordings of songs from throughout Newmans five-decade career, along with a three-CD box set of all volumes (a four-LP, limited-edition vinyl version included bonus tracks). The New York Times said of the first disc: The great craftsmanship is more apparent in the stripped-down context, and the Associated Press said, Few singer-songwriters could inject more new life into solo piano versions of their work than Randy Newman. In 2011, the label released a live CD and DVD recorded at Londons intimate LSO St. Lukes, accompanied by the BBC Concert Orchestra led by Robert Ziegler.

Randy Newmans many honours include six Grammys, three Emmys, and two Academy Awards, as well as a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2002 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013 the same year he was given an Ivor Novello PRS for Music Special International Award. Newman also was presented with a PEN New England Song Lyrics of Literary Excellence Award in 2014.