In September 1970, Newman performed a ten-night stand at New York's famed Bitter End Club that was recorded by Waronker and his associate Russ Titleman (formerly a member of Phil Spector's pop trio the Spectors Three, and a band member on the TV show Shindig !).
Working only with a piano, a mental songbook, and his self-depricating wit, Newman won the audiences over easily, earning a series of encores each night. Surprising to some, live performances come quite easily to Newman, as he told Chuck Marshall in 1978: "I wouldn't have believed it if someone had told me ten years ago that I'd be going out on stage...that absolutely never crossed my mind. And I'm good at that, too. I have a lot more confidence in that actually, than in just being able to write continually."
In May 1971, a promo-only album of 14 live songs (culled from the September 17-19 performances) was released to radio stations in a bootleg-like sleeve stating only the artist's name, song titles, and the sketchiest of source information printed in enlarged type (Reprise PRO 484). Looking to build upon the momentum created by the positive critical response, Waronker pushed to release this promo LP as an official album (a contrasty black and white photo of the artist, courtesy of Newman's cousin, Tony, replaced the promo LP's plain white back cover); Randy Newman/Live (Reprise RS 6459) was issued in June 1971 to serve as a stopgap while Newman toiled away on his next studio release.
Where other artists might think it premature to issue a "live/greatest hits" album on their third release out, for Newman, it made a certain desperate sense: given his tiny audience at the time, what did he stand to lose? More surprising was the LP's relative success: it became his first album to crack the Top 200, rising to #191.
A majority of the live songs came from Newman's first two albums, with a few teasers thrown in from the work in progress, "Last Night I Had A Dream" and "Lonely At The Top," as well as two songs that have never seen an official studio relases, "Tickle Me" and "Maybe I'm Doing It Wrong." Alan Price has cut two different arrangements of the former song (one with flutes and horns, one with strings), though he was more likely drawn to the song's quiet innuendo ("What can you do to amuse me/Now that there's nothing to do/TV set's busted and can't get a picture/Radio plays nothing but news/Why don't you tickle me") over any serious commercial hopes. The more blatent innuendo of the 75-second "Maybe I'm Doing It Wrong" ("I don't seem to be gettin' what everyone's gettin'") may be a factor in its lack of covers to date. Two piano/bass/horn-powered studio takes of this song were recorded around the time of 1972's Sail Away sessions, but remain unreleased.
Another then-unreleased song appearing on the live album, "I'll Be Home," was written by Newman following a telegrammed request of Apple Records head Derek Taylor (for British singer Mary Hopkin); other cover artists of this song include Barbara Streisand, Nilsson, and Tim Hardin (Newman, inexplicably, would wait until 1977's Little Criminals LP before releasing his own studio version).
Among the songs recorded at the Bitter End shows but which remain unreleased are some spectacularly rare piano and vocal performances: "Underneath The Harlem Moon," "Let's Burn Down The Cornfield," "Rosemary," "Uncle Bob's Midnight Blues," "Let Me Go," and parts of "Vine Street" and "If You Need Oil." A wonderfully depressed reading of Domino's "Blue Monday" also exists, as well as Newman's audience-confounding "Magic In The Moonlight" and a droll unreleased salute to S&M, "Beat Me Baby" ("You can have my money/If you play my game ... /Keep a-beatin' me baby/All night long"). A bongo-drived studio outtake of this song also exists.
In addition to "Cold Turkey," Newman also penned the excellent "Let Me Go" in 1971 for the soundtrack of an otherwise forgettable film, "The Pursuit Of Happiness." Competently covered by Barbara Streisand and the Box Tops, Newman's superior studio version (heard over the film's title credits) remains unreleased.