Although Liberty owned Metric, it by no means limited the distribution of its songwriters' material to its artists; it merely took first crack at what was churned out, passed the rest on to its subsidiaries, such as Dolton and Imperial, and/or licensed song copyrights to other labels. As it turned out, few artists on the actual Liberty label ended up recording Newman's material, most of which dates from around the 1962 period of "Somebody's Waiting."
Perhaps the most unexpected cover came from the mid-60's incarnation of Spike Jones' New Band (which had only Jones' blessing in common with his classic original band), who give a slight 1964 Newman instrumental, "Stoplight", a dixieland twist on their self-titled album (Liberty 3349). No subsequent covers have been traced.
Another instrumental, the exotically-titled "Scarlet Mist", was performed by Hawaiian-pop stylist Martin Denny, appearing on his album The Versatile Martin Denny (Liberty LRP 3307M/ 7307S) and his Golden Greats compilation (Liberty 3467M/7467S). An inconsequential jazz piano tune, it sounds no more exotic than a cocktail lounge band warming up. However, given the current hip status of Juan Esquivel and other '60's "bachelor pad" instrumentalists, Denny's albums are quite collectible in many urban markets -- a good time to raid parents' stereo cabinets.
Vocalist Dick Lory (reputedly producer Dick Glasser's alter ego) recorded a Newman one-shot on a 1963 single, "I Got Over You" (Liberty 55529): mindless, bouncy pop centering on the repeated title lyric and highlighted by some near-castrato backing vocals. Blessedly, no other covers are known.
Besides Gene McDaniels, the only other Liberty artist to take on Metric-period Newman was "the English Elvis", P.J. Proby, whose over-the-top reading of "Straight Up" (from his 1967 LP Phenomenon, Liberty 3515) gives new depth to the terms psychedelic and fey ("Child../Life is sad/And short at that/And there's not much time to move in/Go and get yourself an Eighteenth Century hat/And I'll tell you about a place where there's room to groove in"). While not without charm, the song seems like a misdirected draft of Newman's "Mama Told Me Not To Come" (which Proby saw fit to cover on the same album), and suffers by comparison. Randy's own demo of this song has a faster, shuffle-like piano arrangement and more intelligible vocals.