Harps And Angels
Randy Newman- Harps and Angels
- Losing You
- Laugh and Be Happy
- A Few Words in Defense of Our Country
- A Piece of the Pie
- Easy Street
- Korean Parents
- Only a Girl
- Potholes
- Feels Like Home
Randy Newman's 2008 album Harps and Angels is now available on vinyl and also as HD digital, both for the first time. The vinyl edition features what was then the singer-songwriter's first album of new material in nine years on a single 140-gram LP. The Guardian praised the album for its "sumptuous melodies, devastating pathos and thorny, irony-laden character songs," calling it "the work of a true master of popular song."
Co-produced by Mitchell Froom (Elvis Costello, Los Lobos, Sheryl Crow) and former Warner Bros. head and longtime Newman collaborator Lenny Waronker, Harps and Angels showcases Newman’s myriad talents as a political and social commentator, balladeer, and storyteller. The arrangements have a Dixieland feel, with Newman on piano fronting a club-size combo; several tracks feature his lush orchestrations, as grand as anything he has produced on his film scores. According to NPR, “Singer and composer Randy Newman’s wry and sometimes raw musical commentary has become a big part of the American cultural landscape.” The Los Angeles Times says “Newman is a brilliant songwriter who, like Paul Simon and a few others, bridges the gap between the classic American Songbook craftsman tradition and the more personalized singer-songwriter style of the modern pop age.”
Harps and Angels was Newman’s second Nonesuch release, following 2003’s Randy Newman Songbook, Volume 1, which celebrated some of Newman’s best-known work in solo performances by the songwriter at the piano. Nonesuch has since released two additional Songbook volumes, along with a three-CD box set of all volumes (a four-LP, limited-edition vinyl version included bonus tracks). In 2011, the label released a live CD and DVD recorded at London's intimate LSO St. Luke's, accompanied by the BBC Concert Orchestra led by Robert Ziegler. Randy Newman released Dark Matter, his first album of new material since Harps and Angels, earlier this year to critical acclaim and a Grammy Award nomination for Best Arrangement, Instruments and Vocals for the song "Putin."