In the year following the release of his debut album, Newman busied himself assisting some other Reprise artists with their recordings. One of Newman's biggest thrills was the opportunity to work with one of his greatest influences, Fats Domino, on his 1969 comeback LP, Fats Is Back (RS 6304). Newman arranged horn charts for eight of the album's 11 cuts, including Lennon/McCartney's Domino-inspired "Lady Madonna." Newman also contributed an admirably spare arrangement to Peggy Lee's hit recording of the Leiber/Stoller classic, "Is That All There Is?" (Capitol ST-386) and arranged two cuts on Gordon Lightfoot's 1970 Reprise debut, Sit Down Young Stranger/If You Could Read My Mind (RS 6392), "Minstrel Of The Dawn" and "Approaching Lavender."
By mid-1969, Newman had begun work on his second album, 12 Songs. After the hot critical/cold commercial response to his debut, a rethink seemed in order. While major artists from the Beatles to Bob Dylan have attempted "back to roots" albums later in stalled or confused careers, few new artists have attempted one on their sophomore album efforts. For Newman, whose childhood was immersed in New Orleans blues and the shuffle tunes of Fats Domino, the move made perfect sense -- a return to music that was simple, catchy and unaffected.
And unorchestrated: after the extravagance of working with 75 musicians on his album debut, Newman stripped down to a bluesy piano quartet that featured Ry Cooder's light-fingered botttleneck guitar. He also had few arrangements beyond his own piano to consider -free of incidental clutter, the focus was now on Newman's piano (which shone) and the songs themselves.
Even more prominent was Newman's dark sense of humor. Where his debut had muffled his wittier songs ("Love Story," "So Long Dad") between his more poignant ones ("Cowboy," "I Think It's Going To Rain Today," and "Living Without You"), on 12 Songs Newman exuded a Domino-like pleasure in celebrating the (often black) comic sides of love and all its misfortunes. One distinction being that even with a twenty-year handicap in social mores, it's still hard to imagine how the Fat Man would have handled songs about sex and arson, a genteel rapist, suicide (by way of a beach cleaning truck), or the joys of inbreeding -- though Domino did pay Newman the compliment of covering the album's lead cut, "Have You Seen My Baby" (Reprise 891).
"A perfect album," wrote Village Voice critic Robert Christgau, who both awarded the album his highest grade, A+, and listed it among his top ten favorite LPs in a 1978 survey (The Top 200 Albums of All Time, compiled by Peter Gambaccini), distinguishing it from his other nine selections with the caveat: " ... the only album I don't play all the time is 12 Songs ... because it's not a casual kind of record." Other critics concur: the album has received five-star ratings in each edition of the Rolling Stone Album Guide, and has been been repeatedly named among the top 100 albums of all time in numerous critics' polls.
Cover artists clamoring for a sequel to "I Think It's Going To Rain Today," were likely to be disappointed: the most cover-friendly song, "Mama Told Me Not To Come" (about a naif's awakening to the world of soft drugs and free sex), had already been picked clean by Three Dog Night in 1968 (some surprising later R&B covers were also cut by the Jackson 5, Wilson Pickett, and Odetta, of all artists).
Also-ran covers came from further in left field -- songs too over-the-top for AM but a decade too early for album-oriented radio, like "My Old Kentucky Home" ("Brother Gene is big and mean/And he don't have much to say/Had a little woman that he whupped each day/Now she's gone away/Got drunk last night, kicked mama down the stairs/But I'm all right/So I don't care") -- though lyrically tame by today's gangsta rap standards, were simply not-ready- for-top-40 back in 1970, let alone American Bandstand. "Kentucky Home" (which was originally titled "Adolph Rupp," a salute to the famed basketball coach/curmudgeon who served at the University of Kentucky from 1930-70) also appeared on Ry Cooder's Reprise debut (RS 6402) as his sole Newman cover. Other covers of note: Johnny Cash, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Chris Smither, and the Beau Brummels.
Newman's affection for life's eccentrics and loners has rarely been better presented on record. What might seem too broad or tasteless in other hands is relieved by his subtle turns of phrase - "I saw your name, baby/In a telephone booth/And it told all about you, mama/Boy, I hope it was the truth..." Even when milking an easy laugh, Newman typically twists it with a surprise shot to the gut -- in "Yellow Man," he cheerfully sketches in the familiar stereotype, "Eating rice all day/While the children play," before unexpectedly subverting it: "You see he believes/In the family - just like you and me..." Newman's law: keep the target moving.
Newman even made room for a rare cover, an audacious 1932 jive blues tune by Macvk Gordon and Harry Revel titled "Underneath The Harlem Moon" ("They just live for dancin'/They're never blue or forlorn/T'ain't no sin/To laugh and grin/That's why darkies were born ... "). Newman wonderously deadpan vocal makes the song his own.
A number of songs examine the love lives of the obsessive/compulsive. One of Randy's most impeccably crafted songs, "Suzanne," casually unravels the mind-set of a gentleman stalker ("I'm gonna wait in the shadows baby/For you to come by/ ... And then I'll jump from the shadows/And try and catch your eye"), while in the literally deadpan "Lucinda," the narrator passively watches as the object of his affection is buried by a beach cleaning machine ("And as I lay beside her/ ... You know she never made a sound").
Elsewhere, love lost turns desperate: the narrator of "Lover's Prayer" appeals to the Lord ("Don't send me no young girl to love me/With their eyes shining bright/All the young girls are afraid of me/Send me a woman tonight") as the narrator of "If You Need Oil" howls in vain at the moonless dark ("Baby please come to the station/And I'll wipe your wind- shield clean/If you need oil, I'll give you oil/ ... I'll fill your tank with gasoline").
An evocative blues, "Let's Burn Down The Cornfield," explored the erotic side of arson to the understated twang of Cooder's bottleneck, inspiring covers by Lee Hazlewood (London), Etta James (Chess) and the sadly underrated Nolan Porter (Lizard/ABC).
The album stands as a virtual rethinking of how contemporary pop could be defined, and is, for the man Waronker nicknamed "King of the Suburban Blues Singers," a landmark effort.
Also in 1970: while helping cut "Let's Burn Down The Cornfield," track co-producer Jack Nitzsche enlisted Cooder to record some instrumentals for a soundtrack he was working on for the Mick Jagger vehicle, Performance (Warner Bros. BS 2554). Newman contributes vocals to one track, "Gone Dead Train," Nitzsche's outrageous ode to going limp: "My engine was pumping steam/And I was grinding at you hard and fast/And I laughed at the conductor/ Who was telling me my coal would never last/When the fire in my boiler up and quit before I came/Gone Dead Train." Newman's vocal remains his hardest "rock" effort on record; the single release (Reprise 0945) received a sharp remix that improves on the album version.
That same year, pop wunderkind Harry Nilsson dedicated an entire album to Newman's music, Nilsson Sings Newman (RCA LSP-4289). Wisely avoiding the campy arrangement style that trivialized his earlier cover of "Simon Smith," Nilsson decided to keep things simple: songs began with just Newman's own piano, which Nillson then framed with his vocals, often overdubbed or backed by an closely-pitched male quartet. As with many Nilsson recordings, one is first drawn in by the melodic beauty of the vocals -- exquisitely controlled here on "Cowboy," "Caroline," and "I'll Be Home" -- and then the twisted lyrics (in such Newman classics as "Vine Street," "Yellow Man," and "So Long Dad") kick in.
Collector's notes: a rare unreleased take on Newman's "Snow" also dates from these sessions (perhaps a conscientious RCA archivist could help pad out a future CD reissue?); shortly after the album's release, arranger George Tipton released a hommage to the vocalist, Tipton Sings Nilsson, that featured an LP cover nearly identical to Nilsson's LP. In addition, a Paul Williams/Ken Ascher tribute song, "Nilsson Sings Newman" can be found on Williams' wishfully titled A&M album Here Comes Inspiration.
In the summer of 1970, Newman received a phone call from a then-unknown director, Norman Lear, asking if he was interested in scoring a soundtrack for a film in development titled Cold Turkey. Newman accepted, excited by the prospect of working on a complete score after years of writing anonymous background snippets for television shows and the odd B-film theme.
Something of a b-flick itself,Cold Turkey's thin plot (reportedly based on a true story) centered on a wager that the inhabitants of an entire town would quit smoking for one month; Dick Van Dyke starred as Reverend Clayton Brooks, the town's benign priest. Skewered by most critics upon its brief 1971 release, the film suggests little of the incisive satire Lear would later be recognized for in his TV hits All In The Family and Maude, though a few scenes show some bite. As for Newman's upbeat score, he shows a light and original hand, with threads of Aaron Copland, carnival music, and Alfred Newman woven throughout. Randy's stone-faced religious ballad "He Gives Us All His Love" ("He knows how hard we're tryin' /He hears the babies cryin'/He sees the old folks dyin'/He gives us all his love") serves as the movie's intro and outro; the song was later recut for Randy's next studio album.
The instrumental soundtrack was recorded during July and August 1970, with Newman conducting multiple takes from an orchestra and brass marching band, and playing a variety of calliope and steam organ themes himself (a few instrumental themes borrow liberally from the Public Domain). Among the 26 original tracks recorded during these sessions are such titles as "Rev Running," "Blockade," "Please Sign The Pledge," "Milk And Cookies," "I Quit," and "Flying Poodle." Regrettably, this soundtrack remains the only Newman-composed soundtrack to have been unissued in any format to date. One bright note: in 1995, Newman's personal archivist, Gary Norris, uncovered three original reel-to-reel tapes (long believed lost) from these soundtrack sessions; pending some legal wrangling over the complex task of identifying studio musicians for royalties, a CD release may eventually be negotiated.
In 1970, Newman also penned a quickie theme for a remake of a 1950's children's cartoon series, Crusader Rabbit (Newman's one recollection: "I like the last two chords. They're in 'Linda'"). In late June of that year, Newman also made a guest appearance on a Liza Minelli television special, Liza, performing "Love Story," and in September appeared on the David Frost show. The first theatrical performance to feature Newman compositions, Rosenblum, debuted on November 4, 1970 and included seven previously released Newman songs.