Randy Newman is the recipient of two Academy Awards for Best Original Song, 20 Oscar nominations, six Grammy awards, and 14 Grammy nominations. Over the course of his career, he has explored various styles and sounds of the canon of 20th-century American music. A Los Angeles native, Randy Newman became famous during the 1960s and '70s for writing quirky, darkly funny, or sharply satirical songs detailing the lives of characters of his own making. This idiosyncratic style alternated between sweeping cinematic pop and rolling R&B, a style heavily influenced by time spent in New Orleans during his youth. After Randy Newman's self-titled debut album was released in 1968, his reputation as a songwriter grew quickly, as Judy Collins, Dusty Springfield, Peggy Lee, Harry Nilsson, and Joe Cocker, among others, recorded his songs. Newman began a career as a film composer in the early 1980s. Among his film compositions are many kid-friendly songs, including Toy Story's "You've Got a Friend in Me." Newman made his Nonesuch debut in 2003 with the Randy Newman Songbook Vol. 1, 18 tracks drawn from his then 35-year-long career as a recording artist and film score composer, all of them re-cut live in the studio, with just piano and voice, by producer Mitchell Froom. With the 16 tracks that comprise Vol. 2, Newman now surveys 40 years of recordings.

Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Dixie Flyer
2. Yellow Man
3. Suzanne
4. The Girls in My Life (Part 1)
5. Kingfish
6. Losing You
7. Sandman's Coming
8. My Life Is Good
9. Birmingham
10. Last Night I Had a Dream
11. Same Girl
12. Baltimore
13. Laugh and Be Happy
14. Lucinda
15. Dayton, Ohio - 1903
16. Cowboy