‘A kind of musical Mark Twain’: A look at Randy Newman

Randy Newman has been nominated for 22 Academy Awards (he’s won twice), for 23 Grammy Awards (seven wins), and for three Primetime Emmy Awards (and he won all three).

Bruce Springsteen has called him “our great master of American song and storytelling.” Jackson Browne says Randy Newman is “the foremost satirist of our times.” And the composer John Williams has called him “a kind of musical Will Rogers or Mark Twain.”

Critic Robert Hilburn has published what may well be the definitive biography of Newman, A Few Words in Defense of Our Country.

This hour, Hilburn joins us to talk Randy Newman.

GUEST:

• Robert Hilburn: Author of A Few Words in Defense of Our Country: The Biography of Randy Newman

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Colin McEnroe and Dylan Reyes contributed to this show, which originally aired January 24, 2025.

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