2023-11-28 01:19:12
New York-Randy Newman actually wanted to finally go on a big European tour this year. The performances had already been planned in 2020, then the coronavirus pandemic intervened – and now health problems. “Lately I’ve noticed that I’m shrinking,” Newman, who turns 80 on November 28, wrote on his website.
“People I always towered over suddenly towered over me. It turned out that my neck was broken.” He had a successful operation, but the tour had to be postponed from 2022 to 2023 and then again indefinitely. “I really miss performing and look forward to when I can again.”
Oscars and Grammys for film music
The songwriter and composer became famous primarily for his film music. Children’s cartoons such as “Toy Story” and “Monsters Inc” have earned Newman a huge fan base and numerous awards, including Oscars and Grammys. Klaus Lage, himself a Randy Newman fan, sang the German versions of songs like “If I Didn’t Have You” or “You Have a Friend in Me.” At concerts he has to play “You’ve Got a Friend in Me,” there’s no other way, says Newman. “I would never not play it. It means too much to some people.”
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Newman was born in Los Angeles in 1943 into an extremely musical family. The father, actually a doctor, occasionally played the clarinet in Benny Goodman’s band, and two of his uncles were successful film music composers. Little Randall Stuart also learned an instrument, the piano. At 15 he wrote his first song. In his early 30s, he was a successful musician who recorded records, got into the charts and whose music not only accompanied films, but also, for example, the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 1984 – with “I Love LA”.
Newman, who is married for the second time and has five children, likes to play with words and packs irony, mockery and sarcasm into his songs – for example in “It’s Money That I Love” or “Short People”. This was not always correctly understood and also brought him a lot of criticism.
No pension in sight
Over the years, Newman was able to win over fans and critics – and after 16 Oscar nominations, he received his first trophy in 2002, and numerous other awards followed. The Guardian asked him whether he wanted to retire soon. “No, I don’t see that happening. I’ve wondered all my working life why people in show business retire and it’s actually quite simple: nobody applauds at home, so we carry on.”
Most recently, in 2019, he worked on the film scores for “Marriage Story” and Toy Story 4 (“A Toy Story: Everything doesn’t listen to any command”), and his last studio album to date, “Dark Matter,” was released in 2017.
Newman is also politically active – and wrote, among other things, a song for former US President Barack Obama and a song against Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin. A song about former US President Donald Trump was also in the works, but Newman preferred to put the project back in the drawer. “He was just too vulgar,” the songwriter said in an interview. “It makes no sense to further serve the generally prevailing vulgarity. Trump is almost too much, too easy a target.”
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