Born in Los Angeles during World War II, on November 28, 1943, Randall Stuart Newman spent much of his early childhood traveling with his mother around the U.S. while his father "was a captain in the army/Fighting the Germans in Sicily" (as detailed in "Dixie Flyer", a "mostly autobiographical" song from Newman's 1988 album, Land of Dreams, Reprise 25773). Visiting friends, the abbreviated family lived briefly in Jackson, Mississippi, and Mobile, Alabama, and most significantly, with his mother's family in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he returned for most of his childhood summers.
To this day, Newman carries a special affection for the Crescent City, as he told Timothy White in an 1988 interview: "It's my favorite place in this country, I think..the people are sorta sweet, the music is sweet..I love the music, it sounds so good to me."
The classic shuffles and blues songs of Fats Domino, in particular, stuck with him at an early age (an influence most evident on Randy's classic 1970 album, 12 Songs, Reprise 6373): "My natural inclination is to write shuffles -- which is what's kept me selling under a certain amount -- but that's what comes out of me. What comes out of Phil Collins makes him lots of money. My natural thing is to write these ancient shuffles. I have to fight against it, or there'd be too many of 'em."
To be sure, when compared to other contemporary piano-based songwriters, such as Billy Joel or Elton John (whose eclectic playing styles run the gamut from boogie to jazz to rock), Newman's range does reflect a more specific musical palate, consistent with his early tastes in music: R&B pianists Ray Charles, Arthur Alexander, and Domino, early Tin Pan Alley wizards like Irving Berlin, and most anything classical from Brahms to Mozart -- all topped by his uncle Al's award-winning soundtrack work. It is, aside from his dark wit, Newman's unique and uncon- ventional musical background that makes his songwriting so identifiable and peculiarly American in its approach.
In his superb "New Orleans Wins The War" (another semi-autobiographical track from Dreams), Newman draws out another major influence this Southern city had on him: his early exposure to racism ("Momma used to wheel me past an ice cream wagon/One side for White and one side for Colored"), a theme which still fires much of his strongest writing.
From a 1977 interview with Jim Ladd: "I saw it when I was young..you know, bad stuff in the South. I saw "White/Colored" on this ice cream wagon and..jeez, I didn't know what to make of it. I mean, I don't know how sensitive I was as a kid, but I'm not making it up when I say it genuinely bothered me."
Echoing the bitter ironies of his classic song, "Rednecks" (from Good Old Boys, Warner Bros. 2193) he reflects, "The South has done better, in some respects, about civil rights than the North has..still isn't great, but..in places there, you see black and white people actually talking to each other, interacting to some degree, whereas in Detroit or New York or (L.A.) you don't. I mean, you don't see anything, anywhere."
While he has seemlessly taken on the skin and attitudes of bigots to drive the point of his songs home, Newman's deep-rooted emotions towards racism have not waned over the years: "I'm not going to lose the capacity to hate some things -- ever." And despite a degree of cynicism that has snuck into some of his later songwriting, he remains, at heart, a cautious optimist: "I'm rooting for some good changes. But I really don't know..."