Randy Newman's American Dreams

Ann Turner, formerly the financial and budget manager of the University
of British Columbia Library, is a freelance writer.

When the movie credits roll, the composer of the musical score is well
down in the list. When a popular singer launches a new album listeners
rarely ask who originally wrote the songs. Perhaps that is why Randy
Newman’s name is not widely known by the general public, even though
he has spent most of his working life, over 40 years, as a successful
popular singer–songwriter and composer of music for award-winning
films. Newman himself has been nominated 16 times for Academy Awards,
finally winning the Best Original Song Oscar in 2002, but he typically
stays out of the spotlight, both professionally and personally. Readers
will learn the basic facts of his life from this extensively researched
biography, but the focus is predominantly on his music, its inspiration
and its place in the American popular music and film industries since
the 1960s. Quotations from his lyrics appear on nearly every page. The
index gives easy access by song and film titles and the names of
prominent writers, performers and industry executives he has worked
with. In addition to the eight-page bibliography included in the book,
there are individual chapter source notes on the publisher’s website.