A Survivor Who Celebrates Song

When Randy Newman comes to play at the Gainey Vineyard up in Santa Ynez, it will be a spartan, al fresco affair, just as it was a few summers back. Expect to encounter a lone man, a grand piano, a lovably scruffy croon of a voice, and an arsenal of some of the finest American songs written in the past thirty years.

If his earlier solo show at the Gainey was an indication, the show should be a full-service celebration of song. Newman’s continuing saga offers proof that good singer-songwriters don’t get older, they get better.

In a sense, Newman was the class clown of the crop of singer-songwriters who were his peers in the late ‘60s. But there was always a poignancy and unique musical sophistication behind the joking surface.

A respected singer-songwriter with a handful of well-received albums to his credit, Newman is nonetheless notoriously slow in writing. It’s partly because he waits for inspiration and refuses to rest on formula. There’s another good excuse: He has become a sought-after film composer, having chalked up a resume that includes “Ragtime,” “The Natural,” “Toy Story” and “James and the Giant Peach.”

Two years ago, he also finished his ambitious musical theater piece and album, “Faust,” full of sardonic humor and pretty melodies. Old friends James Taylor, Bonnie Raitt, Don Henley and Linda Ronstadt sang in the cast, and Newman played the devil. He made himself do it.

Newman spoke from his home in Los Angeles this week, where he was using the interview as another fine excuse to forestall writing songs for his next album. “There are very few albums out for the amount of years I’ve been at it,” Newman said. “And it’s because of this sort of dithering around.” But by now, he has earned his dithering rights.

*

You don’t do many of these solo performances. Is that a pleasurable release for you?

It is. You get nervous before, and I have to remember lots of songs. It almost feels like I’m not working. Not quite, but almost.

*

It must also be a good way for you to get reacquainted with yourself and your songbook so far.

It is. Sometimes it will surprise me how low I’ve sunk--not artistically, so much, but with some of the characters (in my songs). It reminds me about what I’ve done. I don’t play them at home for myself, so I’m also hearing them for the first time in awhile.

I’ve never sat down and listened to a whole bunch of my albums in a row to see where I’ve been and what I’ve done. I always felt that if I thought I was getting worse, I just wouldn’t do it anymore. I’m not so sure that it isn’t a young person’s art form, in a way. I’m not sure that more people get better instead of worse at it. Someone should do a study, although it would be highly subjective.

*

Songwriters can fall into ruts, relying on what works, or else be more discriminating, more concerned with personal evolution. I get the sense that you’re the latter type.

Hopefully, I am. It’s not a conscious thing with me to have chosen the indirect approach, with myself not being a narrator. I don’t know if it’s a limiting thing or a broadening thing. But there are a lot of ways to improve, harmonically and in other ways.

If I had been like Elton John and had 20 hits, I might not want to go anywhere at all. It isn’t like the record company is saying, “We’ve got to have another Newman album. We’re counting on it for our bottom line this year.” There’s hardly that kind of pressure on me. It’s like the reverse: “Well, we don’t have a Newman album this year, so we might show a profit.”

*

You don’t write those kind of autobiographical, angst-venting tunes, or maybe you vent your angst in different ways. Is that one of the differences between you and your peers?

Well, I think you could know, from what I’ve done, more about what I’m really like than with a lot of people who are spilling their guts. That’s what I’ve found. When I’ve met some of those people, they were different than what I expected from having heard their songs. They’re a lot different than their songs. I’m not.

*

Which is not to say that “Life Is Good” is autobiographical, is it?

It is, sort of. When my kid first started having sleepovers, a kid would come over and pee on the floor and tear down the curtains. His parents would come and say “How was it?” I’d say, “Well, I mean, your kid peed and came at somebody with a knife.” They’d say “Hmm, fine, fine, that’s fine.” These were just regular upper-middle class folks. They didn’t want any bumps in the road.

*

Was film scoring something that you slid sideways into, or was that something you always wanted to do?

When I was kid, I was always pointed at movies in terms of what I thought I’d be doing. The other thing just happened, historically, where rock ‘n’ roll got big. I was a kid and I liked it, so I wrote it. Film music was what I went to school for and studied music for. I always knew I’d do pictures at some point--but not instead of writing songs. I still think what I primarily do is songwriting and performing, loosely speaking.

The thing is, I work so hard on those scores and try so hard to get it right for the picture, and it’s so unimportant compared to making a record. In a movie, someone turns on a water faucet and they turn up the sound, and, boom, a week of work is blown. It’s important in a subliminal way, but it means so much to me and so little to the world.

*

This batch of new songs you’re working on will be on your next album of songs, right?

Yeah. It’s something I haven’t done in a long time. From the first few songs, apparently what was on my mind was getting older. There are old guys trying to get young girls and that kind of thing.

Donald Fagen (Steely Dan) had a whole album with that theme (“Gaucho”), with “Hey Nineteen” and all that. Maybe he was feeling twinges of mortality. I remember back when, everybody was saying, “I’m not going to be doing this when I’m 30.” Now everybody’s in their 40s and nobody’s leaving the stage. The Moody Blues and Jagger are still out there, hacking away.

*

Is life good?

Yeah. As much as I might complain about deadlines and writing being hard, I never forget that it’s a privilege to earn your living in this ridiculous way and not to have a real job, not to have a nine to five, not to have a boss, not to have money be the principle motivating factor in your life. If most people get pushed around, that’s what they get pushed around by, and I’m not.

I’ve written songs, like “Lonely at the Top,” about show biz people complaining about how lonely this is and all that stuff. As my uncle, who was an agent, used to say, it’s better than threading pipe.

BE THERE

Randy Newman at the Gainey Vineyard in Santa Ynez on Friday, gates open at 5:30 p.m., show at 7:30. Tickets are $35; 688-0558.