Floridian: Let's talk, but leave your hat on

Let's talk, but leave your hat on

Don't expect a singer's voice and don't take the lyrics at face value when Randy Newman performs. But the composer and musician has plenty of admirers and loads of staying power.

By STEVE PERSALL

Randy Newman likes short people and Southerners, detests racial prejudice and doesn't really think America should drop the Big One to see what happens. It just never sounds that way in his songs.

Maybe it's his voice, a sneering mumble passed through what seem to be perpetually clogged sinuses. Newman can sing like a wheezing drunk or a playful child, barely shifting timbre and always sincere -- too convincing sometimes for the irony packed into his lyrics.

Some people didn't understand that Short People spoofed discrimination of any size, shape or color. Or that the slave trader promises of Sail Away ("In America, you get food to eat. Don't have to run through the jungle and scuff up your feet.") are damnable lies. Newman isn't as crazy about Los Angeles as I Love L.A. suggests.

His new single, A Fool in Love from the film Meet the Parents, begins with another caustic fib: "Show me a man who's gentle and kind and I'll show you a loser."

"You know, I don't really feel that way at all," Newman rasped during a telephone interview. "But it's a tough country for people who are that."

Conversation with the 57-year-old composer has the same loopy, loping and occasionally snide appeal as his music. Here are Newman's own takes on his singular voice, others who covered his compositions, a record 13 Oscar nominations for film music without winning and what he has in common with a certain skinny white rapper:

Steve Persall: People are so uptight today. Can you imagine starting a career now with the satirical material you wrote then?

Randy Newman: Well, I don't guess I would be starting today. Maybe in the movies, I could. But as a songwriter, maybe not. Maybe if I was 24 again, I'd write differently. I don't think so.

Thing is: Eminem, despite the language, despite the misogyny, has the same kind of comic talent I have, and he has a great deal of it. Whether he'll blow up or something, I don't know. He's the same kind of writer I am, but he's popular (laughs). He's funny. Stan is funny. I'm Sorry I Gave You Mushrooms is funny.

SP: Have you ever gotten a diagnosis for why your voice sounds the way it does?

RN: It's better than it was, whatever it is. I don't know whether it's nodes or whatever. Not a lot of people like the way I sing. Probably more don't. But I've always liked it, although there are certain things I can't sing. I'm not going to be doing People, the Streisand song, but ... (starts half-heartedly humming People). No, I could do it.

I could take singing lessons. That would give me a few more notes in the clear than I got. In a traditional sense, I'm sort of a low tenor with a pretty good octave. I've got tremendous range, actually, but it's not all good.

SP: How about other people's voices? What are your favorite covers of your songs?

RN: (Harry) Nilsson did well with everything. (Joe) Cocker did Guilty, I Think It's Going to Rain Today and You Can Leave Your Hat On and did very well by me. (Linda) Ronstadt always did, and Bonnie Raitt. Cilla Black did an old record (I've Been Wrong Before) that was a great job. Not a real good song, but she did it very well.

SP: What did those singers grasp about your music that others didn't?

RN: Bonnie, for example, sings rock 'n' roll and that's what I usually do, so she just got it. She sings my way, except her voice is pretty. I was close to Nilsson and he loved the stuff, so he just did it.

The dividing line is: There are Broadway and classical people who really can't sing with a backbeat. They don't get it. Rock 'n' roll people do get it. And the same goes the other way with all these versions of old musical standards. Linda has done them. Sting does them very well. He gets it. He can go both ways; sing Gershwin and sing his own stuff. But it's not that usual.

SP: Any covers that make you cringe?

RN: Sure. Plenty of them. But I'm happy to have them. It's always a compliment.

SP: Any names you care to mention?

RN: I didn't like Mama Told Me Not to Come at first, the Three Dog Night version, until it became a hit. But I came to appreciate it, either out of greed or just eventually understanding what they did. They made it into a hit. It wasn't a hit the way I had it. I didn't have a big hook on there, but I can't complain.

Streisand didn't do my songs very well. I can't remember what she ended up doing. It was during that Stoney End period. Yet, you listen to that voice and it's one of the remarkable instruments of the century. At the time, she lacked the flexibility. She had just started singing rock 'n' roll. She didn't come from there and it's different. I think she could do them better now.

SP: Filmmakers cast actors for certain qualities. What do they tell you they're looking for when they hire you?

RN: Sometimes they want me because they like my records, which is a mistake. I'm going to do something different for them. I think it's that I can write a tune, which is rare for some weird reason. It's almost the rarest commodity in movie music. There aren't many people who can really do it.

You get typecast. I did the three animated things (both Toy Story movies and A Bug's Life) and the next one was a comedy. But, actually, the best work I've done has been Awakenings or Avalon, those kinds of serious movies.

SP: Oscar voters seem to love you ...

RN: The musicians' branch that does the nominating, at least.

SP: ... so when are they going to finally give you one of those awards?

RN: There's only been two or three times when I thought I might have a chance. A Passage to India beat me for, I think, The Natural, and I thought I might have won that. The Full Monty beat me for one of the animated films, and it was my song (You Can Leave Your Hat On) at the end of The Full Monty, which only had about 15 minutes of music in it.

A lot of times I know I'm not going to win because the song wasn't a hit. If I'm in a movie that gets a best picture (nomination) and is sort of serious, I might win. It's that quixotic, so much so that I don't care.

SP: Did growing up with two Oscar-winning uncles (composers Alfred and Lionel Newman) make it easier not to care?

RN: I had a sort of rational view about it. I saw Al all those years, and the only time he appeared to care was when he didn't get nominated for The Robe. He should have been, of course. Sometimes he would win when something else should've, and sometimes he lost when he shouldn't.

In a way, I'm glad I don't have to go up there (on stage) and speak extemporaneously. My other uncle is the only person in the history of the awards who actually said something vulgar up there. He won for Doctor Dolittle, which he used to call "Doctor Do-nothing,' and he had some choice things to say.

There's a streak of vulgarity in the family and in me, and I'm always worried that I won't behave well in those situations.

Preview

Randy Newman at Van Wezel Hall, 777 N Tamiami Trail, Sarasota, 8 p.m. Friday. Tickets are $29 and $26, available at the venue's Web site, http://www.vanwezel.org, or by calling (800) 826-9303.