Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com essential recording
Odd man out in California's early '70s panoply of singer-songwriters, Randy Newman didn't play guitar, refused to confess specific personal dreams and sins, and sidestepped the counter-cultural trinity of sex, rebellion, and self. Newman dared to be a neo-classical pop survivor, narrative guerilla, and prankster, and no album summarizes these gifts better than this 1973 classic, which found the singer, songwriter, pianist, and arranger spreading his wings to fuse the economy of his songwriting with his lush gifts as a composer. The classic title song mingles its elegiac orchestral bloom with the devastating, deadpanned sales pitch of its slave trader protagonist, while elsewhere Newman wraps his whiskey drawl and laconic piano around acerbic meditations on God ("He Gives Us All His Love," "God's Song"), celebrity ("Lonely at the Top"), nuclear Armageddon ("Political Science"), and sex ("You Can Leave Your Hat On"). Funny, tragic, moving American pop at its zenith. --Sam Sutherland
Sail Away,Randy Newman,Warner Bros / Wea,Baroque Pop,Pop,Pop/Rock,Popular Music,Rock,Rock/Pop,Singer/Songwriter,United States of America
Popular Music:
Recommended Music:
Shirl Jae Atwell: Lucy; Movements Four South; String Orchestra Pieces
Spontini - Le Vestale / Huffstodt, Michaels-Moore, Kavrakos, D. Graves, Teatro alla Scala, Muti
Out Classics, Vol. 2: Stepping Out