NOTWITHSTANDING HIS APPARENT LACK OF POP STAR LOOKS or rock star cool, Randy Newman’s star was rising as a solo singer-songwriter. This scion of a Hollywood movie music family, with roots in New Orleans, had made strides since his craft had found him a home at Warner Bros’ hip and ambitious Reprise label – a favourite of boss Mo Ostin and his young, artist-focused A&R Lenny Waronker. After penning hits for Gene Pitney and Alan Price and partnering Van Dyke Parks in the engine room of baroque pop sensations Harper’s Bizarre, Newman’s solo albums were succès d’estime until Sail Away dented the Billboard chart in 1972. Stunningly written and arranged, and elegantly produced by Waronker and Russ Titelman, it wove exquisite spells and asked thorny questions, not least in its title song, where Newman posed as the pitch man for a ship carrying African slaves to America, its historical evil all the more crushing for being so blithely disguised.
But as the following chapter from Robert Hilburn’s new book describes, Newman was set to flirt with still greater danger on his next album, using words authentic to a new, Southern white narrator – committed to his perceived ancestral vocation of “keeping the [n-words] down” – in a song that would evermore crystallise his bravery as an artist, and his humanity.
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