No comments about Toy Story.

1 comments about Toy Story.

1. This is a trio of songs from the Disney movie "Toy Story" The songs are "You've Got a Friend in Me" "Strange Things" and "I Will Go Sailing No More". A nice colletion, but I was slightly disappointed by how few songs are in this book. It is mostly pictures, with these three songs placed throughout. The book contains a treble clef (for vocal performance) a grand staff (for piano performance) and guitar chord diagrams. Most of the songs are rather easy to play. All are written in 4/4 time. Recommended mostly for the beginner, but this book does have some good songs in it.

1 comments about James and the Giant Peach (Randy Newman songbook).

1. If you're interested in learning or performing the Randy newman songs from Disney's movie, this is the book for you. I already owned this when I ordered it ...... (where it is simply listed as a paperback of reading level aged 9-12) thinking it was a version of Roald Dahl's story. Because I love music, I kept it and passed it on to other musicians.

1 comments about Randy Newman / Bad Love.

1. This book, like the superlative 'Randy Newman Anthology', transcribes Bad Love's music perfectly. This is presumably because Newman himself is a meticulous composer and archives his material.

   I'm basing the rating for the book purely on the calibre of the sheet music. Whether or not the music itself is five stars is up to you. But ultimately, in the preponderance of songbooks available on the market, Bad Love and the aforementioned Anthology are both extremely good buys. It's a bit hard to wrap your head around Newman's music to begin with, since singing along to a shuffle tempo whilst jumping around with your left and right hands is a bit tricky, but these songs are quickly learnt and certainly not that difficult.

   Some other good buys that fit under the category of transcriptions are the Elton John Keyboard Book, the Billy Joel Keyboard Book and any of the Ben Folds Five songbooks. But of course, for true Newman fans, there's nothing like retreating to the piano to play a bit of his music.

1 comments about Toy Story 2.

1. This is a nice set of songs from TS2. It's a bit overpriced for just a few songs but so is most sheet music. The arragements are excellent and the printing is flawless. If you don't want the souvenir aspect of it and can get the songs from the Randy Newman anthologies, go for it. It's a better deal. But if you can't, here it is.

5 comments about Randy Newman: American Dreams.

1. I have waited years for a book on Newman and was very disappointed by this attempt. Courrier is a lefty and tried to interweave his political views in every Newman song to the point where is became so not about the subject matter - Newman himself. Still waiting for a true biography on Randy...



2. Music is one of the most difficult art forms to write about clearly and fairly. Sometimes it's not enough just to listen to every recording in an artist's career. The insights may be hidden or disguised by the artist so that they don't reveal anything about themselves. So it is with Randy Newman, one of the best contemporary songwriters and musicians to come from the United States. In this book, Randy Newman's American Dreams, author Kevin Courrier goes "under-cover" to discover who the "real" Randy Newman is and what his songs reveal about himself and his country. To this end, Courrier has written a well researched treatise on Newman's music and his times. The book is thick with information about popular music not only about Newman but about Frank Sinatra, Jackie De Shannon and Harry Nilsson. It is a triumph of musical biography laced with good stories about singers, record labels and Newman himself. I highly recommend this to anyone interested in taking the time to learn about one musician's art and how he's been treated by the music business.



3. As so many Randy Newman fans I was very much looking forward to this book. But I am sorry to say I do not like this book. The writer is to analytical and opinionated.
   What also bothered me was that he goes on and on about other artists (Bob Dylan, Dusty Springfield, Brian Wilson etc.), sometimes for three or four pages, where two sentences would have been enough.
   Kevin Courrier also doesn't think Newman's film music is very good. I strongly disagree Randy Newman is a real craftsman. The writer makes the mistake of comparing Newman's songs with the functional purpose of music for the movies.
   I did like to read about the friendship between Newman and Lenny Waronkel. But the extraordinary Newman family, with the great film-composers Alfred, Lionel and nephew Thomas Newman don't get enough attention. Instead Kevin Courrier attempts to psychoanalyse; "Life behind the mask", "the success of the mask" etc. trying to explain why Newman does what he does - to me that is not very interesting and I think it's pretentious.
   All in all this book has been a disappointment. A unique composer & songwriter like Randy Newman with whom every note, chord and sentence has a meaning certainly deserves a lot better than this!



4. First, if you read this book expecting a biography, you will be disappointed. It is, instead, a critical analysis of Randy Newman's work. It is by no means unbiased, therefore, and fans will certainly disagree with some of what Courrier has to say. On the other hand, I was grateful that there actually WAS an entire book about Randy Newman and which went to some trouble to analyze his entire career -- right up to the "Bad Love" album. There are dozens of books about Elvis, the Beatles, and Dylan, but this is the first one I've ever seen about Randy. If nothing else, this is a thorough examination of Newman's career, admirably focusing more on the work than on the man. In that respect, it reminded me of Ben Watson's book about Frank Zappa entitled "The Negative Dialetics of Poodle Play."
   
   As the other reviews have pointed out, this book can make for excruciating reading at times -- but only if you choose to read it straight through as a narrative. (Watson's book can be similarly frustrating in this manner.) Mercifully, the book contains a good index at the back. What I did was, if I wanted to know what Courrier thought of a particular album or song, I looked up that song in the index and flipped to that particular passage. I believe he comments in some way on just about every song I looked up. Sometimes his comments are actually helpful (e.g. "Rednecks"), and sometimes not (e.g "William Brown").
   
   Fans should know what they're getting BEFORE they purchase this book, so I would highly recommend trying to find it at a library before purchasing it through Amazon. You might very well find this book useless. It is far from the last word on Newman or his music. But when the definitive tome on Newman *is* written, "American Dreams" will make an excellent source for quotes and commentary. It is simply one writer's opinion of Randy Newman's recorded work.
   
   (What I'd REALLY like to read, of course, is a book in which Randy himself gives play-by-play on his songs. He does give a bit of background about the songs when he performs them live, and there is a bit of commentary in the liner notes of the "Guilty" boxed set. Courrier helpfully quotes those liner notes throughout his book, along with some other good Randy quotes taken from various interviews.)



5. Like one of the other reviewers of this book, I was more glad of its actual existence than bothered by any of its flaws. Those flaws are as otherwise described; namely a tendency on the author's part both to focus on other, not always relevant, artists, and to assume that his own interpretation of the meaning of any given Newman song is necessarily the "correct" one. The former is frequently not a flaw at all - I was perfectly happy, for example, with the number of pages devoted to Harry Nilsson, partly because Nilsson was another exceptional artist, and partly because he was relevant to the book. But 3 pages about a Procul Harum song based on "The Beehive State" was something I skimmed past.
   
   This is mainly a matter of personal preference, which is my main problem with Courrier's book. Consider, for example, Courrier's interpretation of "My Life Is Good". This, he says, is "a savage attack on yuppie values". Really? I'd always enjoyed the idea that it was Newman actually admitting, or even celebrating, his own indifference or selfishness, or at least suggesting that such traits are worth consideration beyond mere condemnation. The Randy Newman whose songs I enjoy is someone who explicitly does not tell you what to think. The author of "Rednecks", "Sail Away", "Political Science" etc is, to me, someone whose keynote is ambiguity, and the deliberate portrayal of supposedly unpalatable sentiments in a sympathetic light.
   
   Similarly, the track "Masterman and Baby J", about which Newman said, "I wanted to write about rap bragging. It's amazing how much of it there is", becomes, according to Courrier, an attempt to "dramatize how the despair and disenfranchisement of black urban poetry has led to an incendiary and poetic form of musical expression". No evidence is presented for this assertion, and it's perfectly possible to believe (as I do) that Newman simply doesn't like rap bragging.
   
   Courrier is, however, savvy enough to recognise and appreciate the complexity and importance of "Good Old Boys", namely that it represents Newman's giving the working class Deep South a decent hearing on its own terms, and that the opening track "Rednecks" was a satire that chose to avoid the easy target its title implied, and instead to lampoon the complacency of Northern liberals, and their own attitudes towards the Southern States. He's also good on details; I didn't know that the edition of the Dick Cavett show that spawned "Rednecks" had Gore Vidal as a guest. Merely learning this gives you a clue as to why the song was written. Also, he's clearly a fan, and this is ultimately why the book's values outweigh its flaws. It makes you want to listen to Randy Newman; in particular the pages about his first album (which I've often overlooked in favour of "Sail Away" and "Good Old Boys") had me listening to it again and recognising further virtues. The title track of "Sail Away" warrants several pages in its own right, which are again educational as well as interesting - you learn that Gladys Knight, of all people, recorded a cover of the song.
   
   Ultimately, then, you might disagree (or not) with how some of the songs' "messages" are interpreted - I tend to see Newman as a kind of musical Larry David, fairly at home with the flaws he describes, rather than as a political figure whose job is to condemn and criticise - but this is at least a serious study of a significant artist, and well worth the reading.

2 comments about Randy Newman Guitar Songbook (Guitar Tab) (Guitar-Tab Edition).

1. The Randy Newman Guitar Songbook is a wonderful collection of Newman's most popular (by Randy Newman's standards!) and acclaimed songs. Would be of value for any musician, as it contains several songs not found in the Randy Newman Anthology Vol. 1 or Vol. 2 folios, but it's especially a treat for his guitar playing fans. The selection of material is first-rate, spanning Newman's career from his first LP through his recent work for Pixar Films. It includes his vintage but incredibly timely classics "Political Science" and "Louisiana, 1927", among other timeless gems. According to the publisher's notes, Randy had a direct hand in developing this folio, including song selection and approval of the charts. Newman's classically inspired piano style is nicely suited to the guitar, as seen in several of these transcriptions, and his rock/shuffle material also works smoothly. The arrangements are mostly intermediate level, incorporating very nice authentic chord voicings and accurate melodies for all the essential riffs. Arranged in standard notation and guitar tablature, the material is easily accessible for both the studied and the casual guitarist. The riffs are great fun to play, but it's also rewarding just to play the accompanying chords in their proper voicing. This book seems like a can't miss for any Randy Newman fan, and is highly recommended. Be nice to your guitarist pals and turn them on to it, they'll thank you.



2. Five stars, since this is probably the first and only book to present Randy Newman music for the guitar. Also, since I agree with the positive things said in the previous review, I'll focus on something of a negative, so that the handful of consumers interested in this book have a better idea of what it contains. It seems that the authors tried to transcribe the original piano from the recordings directly onto guitar, but with with no embellishment; this is very faithful to the music and respectful to the composer. However, this means that for some of the tunes, the fingerpicking tab (and notation) drops out and you're left with chord slashes. It also means that for most of these tunes, you're playing an accompaniment, not chords *and* melody, as you would in a full fingerstyle arrangement. That is, if you want lyric melody as you play, you'll have to sing it (either out loud or in your head). But a lot of fingerstyle players are used to playing both at the same time. Here you're often just picking out chords (which are great to see - the book gives even long-time fans greater appreciation for what Randy does differently from his '60s and '70s peers). So, if you you want your guitar to sound very close to what the piano is doing in "Lonely at the Top," or in the intro to "Rednecks," or in "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" get this book. But what works on piano doesn't automatically work on guitar (though sometimes it does, surely); what the authors didn't do was take these songs and make guitar music out of it; that is, they didn't use the original tunes as a jumping off point to create something that while still Randy Newman music, is also something unique to the guitar, exploiting the unique qualities of the guitar and the things it can do. That might seem like a minor quibble, but there are plenty of tab books that do this for other composers/types of music and good fingerstyle players/authors who could do this, and actually this was what I was hoping for here (perhaps unreasonably) and didn't get. Maybe that approach would have made the arrangements more difficult, but that would have been better. On the other hand, this book has gotten the seal of approval from the great composer himself who, in his intro, thanks the authors for their creative interpretations. But he then goes on to confess that the guitar mystifies him. Hmm.
   
   Naturally this kind of book is for very casual players who (like me) are pathetic when it comes to figuring out tunes on their own. So on that level, I'm very happy to have it, and appreciative of what the authors did. But honestly, I think there's room in the market for another book - something like "Randy Newman for Fingerstyle Guitar" or "Randy Newman for Solo Guitar." This book is neither of those things.

No comments about The Randy Newman Songbook Vol. 1.

2 comments about Randy Newman Anthology, Vol. 2 (Music for Film, Television and Theater).

1. This collection of Randy Newman tunes is excellent, and a must-have for any Randy Newman fan interested in Randy's film work, or his knack for writing great songs. Buy it.
   Gary Norris - Randy Newman Archivist and Collector



2. This second volume of Randy Newman sheet music is of the same high quality that Volume One was. The transcriptions are accurate and each song is detailed in the key it was recorded in. There are some excellent selections in this book, including 'Laugh and Be Happy', 'My Life is Good', 'Make Up Your Mind', 'The Ballad of the Three Amigos' and the two instrumental tracks from 'Avalon' and 'Awakenings'.
   
   Perhaps the only 'problem', if you can call it that, is that the selections are mainly from particular movie soundtracks. I am a huge fan of Randy's songwriting and have all of his albums (including the box-set 'Guilty', which does have some of the film scores reproduced on Volume 2); however, I have not tracked down the soundtracks from 'Monsters Inc', 'Toy Story' and 'James and Giant Peach', for example. Further, the theatre piece 'The Education of Randy Newman' is, to the best of my knowledge, not available for public release. There is a song in the Volume 2 anthology called 'Stupid Little Songs' which is from that theatrical piece; however, given its unavailability, we really have no idea (apart from the how the music reads on the page) how Randy sings it or how it should go. Therefore, half of the music in this book is kind of inaccessible, in a sense of the word. You will need to be diligent to hunt down the other tracks that are not as easily accessible should you wish to play the music in Volume 2 as confidently and assuredly as you would with the music in Volume 1.
   
   Nevertheless, it's Randy, and he writes well. I love his music and any addition to his sheet music ouevre is welcomed with open arms.

5 comments about Randy Newman Anthology.

1. Like Randy Newman's music? This book may be for you. It includes lyrics, tab and piano accompaniment, which follow Randy's recorded versions fairly well (at least for the songs on his album with "Sail Away"). For instance, on "Dancing Bear" the arrangement has a vocal line with a piano accompaniment which is pretty much what Randy plays. You can sound just like him if you want, or of course take it somewhere else. The book is at an intermediate level.

   The songbook includes the following songs: Burn On, Cowboy, Davy The Fat Boy, I Think It's Going To Rain Today, It's Lonely At The Top, Living Without You, Mama Told Me Not To Come, Political Science, Simon Smith And The Amazing Dancing Bear, Feels Like Home, Baltimore, In Germany Before The War, Miami, Real Emotional Girl, Same Girl, Song For The Dead, You've Got A Friend In Me, Sail Away, Old Man, The God Song That's Why I Love Mankind, You Can Leave Your Hat On, Guilty, Rednecks, Marie, Louisiana 1927, One More Hour, I Love L A, Short People, It's Money That Matters, Dixie Flyer, I Want You To Hurt Like I Do, I Love To See You Smile, Gainesville, Bleeding All Over The Place, Sandman's Coming.




2. ...Then this book is a must-have! Not only is it full of otherwise impossible-to-find songs (I spent nearly ten years looking for "Gainesville" after losing my copy), it includes an invaluable introduction by Michael Roth, probably the world's greatest expert on Newman. Roth's advice on just how to approach Newman's scores is borne of decades of collaboration with the composer and will help you give that "Newman feel" to your playing. For singers, this book offers a wealth of little-known gems to add to your repertoire. Yes, it doesn't include a lot of his big hits, but you can find those anywhere. This is the book I've been waiting for.



3. There are three reasons why this book deserves five stars:

   1) The transcriptions are extremely good. Instead of an interpretation that sounds dubiously like the melody line, the piano parts have been reproduced from Newman's own archives. Some of them are not EXACTLY what Newman plays, but for the most part they are.

   2) The selection of songs is such that consideration has gone into what is 'fun' to play on the piano. Included is music from Newman's entire career, from 'Davy the Fat Boy' through to 'Bleeding All Over the Place'. Thought has been put into which songs work best on the piano and which ones are not repetitious.

   3) The lyrics have been expertly aligned with the music and the music itself is clear and well presented.

   For these reasons, the Randy Newman Anthology is a superlative songbook compared to the plethora of dodgy chord-based songbooks out there. Randy Newman's 'Bad Love' songbook is also very good.

   For a true Newman fan this book will never get old.




4. The kind of transcriptions we are all looking for. Perfect, super. I'm anxiuos to come back to home to play them. Randy is great: in words, notes and message. I wait for a next book, specially to see if Memo to my son is there, you know.



5. I am a professional musician, and have always enjoyed Randy Newman's music -- but getting a good look at the actual sheet music made me appreciate him even more. The music is complex and subtle, and a powerful work of art.