The “Golden Hits Of The 70s”
Main MenuConcept Refinement The Author..Wayne JancikGolden Age Of The 50sGolden Age Of The 60s1970s and There After
RANDY NEWMAN
“SHORT PEOPLE”
(RANDY NEWMAN)
Warner Bros. 8492
No. 2 January 28, 1978
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He received a death threat during a tour stop near the site where Martin Luther King, Jr. was
assassinated. Not all individuals came to appreciate Randy Newman’s “Short People” as a “joke,” or as “a
humorous statement against prejudice.”
“‘Short People’ was the worst kind of hit anyone could have,” Randy Newman (b. Nov. 28, 1943, Los
Angeles) told Joe Smith in Off the Record. “It was like having [SHEB WOOLEYs’] ‘Purple People Eater.’
I’d try to watch a ball game and the band would play the song and the announcers would make jokes
about it.”
As a recording artist, Newman is a cult figure; as a writer, he has achieved substantial success. His early
songs were recorded by a number of artists, including Ray Charles, Joe Cocker, Judy Collins, Art
Garfunkel, Harry Nilsson, Peggy Lee, the Animals’ Alan Price, Linda Ronstadt, NINA SIMONE, Ringo
Starr, Barbra Streisand, and Three Dog Night.
“My music has a high irritation factor,” Randy told Rolling Stone’s Timothy White. “I’ve always tried to
say something. Eccentric lyrics about eccentric people. Often it was a joke. But I would plead guilty on
the grounds that I prefer eccentricity to the bland.”
Newman recalled to Keyboards’ Gil Podolinsky, “I started taking piano lessons when I was six or seven.
At 11 or 12, I got into studying theory, harmony, and counterpoint. I wanted to be a film composer,
because I was influenced by what my uncles [Lionel (conductor of Fox Orchestra), Emil (scored John
Wayne flicks), and the late Alfred Newman (winner of nine Academy Awards for scores such as
Anastasia, Airport, Camelot, and The King and I )] were doing. So I studied with Mario Castelnuovo-
Tedesco for about four years, and then went to UCLA and studied with George Tremble-a good man;… I
started writing songs at 16, and I took them to a publisher [Metric Music, then a subdivision of Liberty
Records], and they signed me up. I did that for about eight years before I recorded myself in ’67 or ’68.”
The reaction to Newman’s first album, a self-titled effort for Warner Bros., was what one might call
under whelming. His second LP–12 Songs (1970)–brought a little more notice; it contained “Mama Told
Me Not to Come,” a major hit for Three Dog Night.
Album number three–Randy Newman: Live (1971)–was the first to reach the top pop albums chart. To
this day, Randy continues to issue critically acclaimed records; his best-selling LPs include Sail Away
(1972), Good Old Boys (1974), Little Criminals ( 1977), Trouble in Paradise (1983), and Land of Dreams
(1988). He has also written evocative film scores such as the Oscar-nominated Ragtime (1981), The
Natural (1984), and Parenthood (1989).
Randy’s “I Love Los Angeles” became something of an area anthem, thanks largely to a video created by
cousin Tim Newman, the man responsible for catchy ZZ Top video vehicles.