HELLO, NEWMAN
Randy newMan RetuRnS to PittSBuRGh afteR fouR decadeS to Play with the PSo
The last time Randy Newman played Pittsburgh, Jimmy Carter was the president and the first “Star Wars” movie had just come out. It was October 1977 at the Syria Mosque. It’s not that he hasn’t toured, he says. “I guess no one gave me an offer to play Pittsburgh. I guess the demand wasn’t there. I don’t think I was ever on the radio much. If someone made me an offer I would have come. I remember the hills and the scary airport, and I always loved the Pirates.”
The composer and satiric singer-songwriter will make his long-awaited return tonight with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra at Heinz Hall as part of the Thursday Night Icons series. He’ll be doing some songs on solo piano, some backed by the PSO, and he’ll conduct the orchestra in music from several of the films he scored.
The PSO collaboration makes sense for Mr. Newman, who has long made use of orchestral arrangements, going back to his self-titled 1968 debut. Prior to that, having struck out with his first single in 1962, his focus was songwriting, for such artists as The Fleetwoods, Gene Pitney, Petula Clark and Dusty Springfield.
Record execs didn’t hear his talk-sing vocals and declare, “That’s a voice for radio!”
“I got reviews that said, ‘It’s a voice that takes getting used to — like forever maybe,’ ” he says with laugh. “So there was that. I never thought I would be a recording artist. I was just writing songs and a couple record companies wanted demos and I thought I’d try. I was never embarrassed about my voice. There are things I know I can’t do. I can’t hold a note for a day and a half — or for eight seconds — so I don’t write things like that.”
At least not for himself. But he has written more challenging vocal songs for other people, such as “Feels Like Home,” sung by Bonnie Raitt for his musical “Faust.” “I have to trick myself into writing love songs,” he says.
As a songwriter, Mr. Newman is about as decorated as they come, having won six Grammys, three Emmys and two Academy Awards (out of 20 nominations). He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013.
Three Dog Night’s cover of his song “Mama Told Me (Not to Come)” topped the charts in 1970, but as a recording artist Randy Newman is a one-hit wonder, and that hit was a doozy: the misunderstood satire “Short People,” a No. 2 single from 1977’s “Little Criminals.”
Of that being his one hit, he says, “It couldn’t be worse. It was not only a novelty hit, but it actually alienated people. Couldn’t be more useless. The minute they could take it off the air, they did because of complaints. I’ve said many times, it’s like having a hit with ‘Purple People Eater’ or something. It’s not like having a ‘Just the Way You Are,’ where it has mileage. If people know nothing else, it’s that.”
Some people, generally short ones, are still angry at him for writing it.
“Every now and then, I’ll get a nurse or someone glaring at me, because maybe she had a hard time in school. And she’ll stick the needle in a little harder.”
He has made up for it, among little people, by writing music for the “Toy Story” movies, including the beloved ballad “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” that spoke to Andy’s friendship with his cowboy doll Woody. That’s a song with mileage.
“‘You’ve Got a Friend’ will last because of the movie,” he says. “Kids come to shows now, which never happened. I have to play it early before they fall asleep.”
It also requires him to watch his language a little more, but, “With a symphony you have to anyway,” he says, “because it’s a subscription.”
Mr. Newman wrote a score for Norman Lear’s “Cold Turkey” in 1971, but his film work began in earnest in 1981 with “Ragtime,” which earned two Oscar nominations. He has since scored seven Disney/Pixar films (the two Oscar wins, for Original Song, are for “If I Didn’t Have You” from “Monsters, Inc.” and “We Belong Together” from “Toy Story 3”) along with “Three Amigos!” (a film he co-wrote), “The Natural,” “Parenthood,” “Meet the Parents” and “Seabiscuit,” among many others.
For that, he set aside his own work, to some extent, recording only four studio albums of new material since the ’80s.
Asked how the film work changed the perception of him as a recording artist, he says, “It didn’t change it much. I think it helped me stay sharp. I don’t think I’ve gotten worse. I don’t think my last two albums are worse than when I was 25 or 26.
“I think a lot of people do their best work before they’re 30, but I don’t think so in my case. No one is going to tell you you’ve peaked, you should give it up. You keep going. There are more people out there from the ’70s than the ’90s. I don’t know why that is. The audiences are older. Maybe it’s because music was more of a communal thing then. I don’t think it was that the music was better.”
Mr. Newman is about to start writing music for “Toy Story 4,” projected for a June 2017 release, but first he’s working on the follow-up to 2008’s “Harps and Angels.”
“I don’t want to scare anybody,” he says, “but it’s a step in another direction. Sometimes the songs have more than one voice, one narrator. Not like a radio show, but there will be one voice and another. I don’t think it’s too hard to follow. I’ve taken a lot of risks. I’m glad I’m reaching out.” Nothing to lose at this point in his career, right? “Yeah,” he says. “From the crypt. Why not?”