The Randy Newman Songbook Vol 2  Nonesuch * * * * *

There's a well of sadness in the art of Randy Newman. Of course there are laughs, too, and satire, insight and irony, as well as sublime melodies born in the ethos of the Great American Songbook. Take Dixie Flyer, the first track in this second volume of Newman's rereading (with lone voice and piano) of selected songs from his 40-year plus career. Ostensibly a tune about his family's trip back to the south during the second World War, Newman paints a picture of bitter cultural compromise in which his family's Jewishness and their suppression of it is the price paid to live in the "Land of Dreams". The narrative is as light-fingered as the horse- trotting melody, but his jaunty playing can't hide the pain of memory. There are 15 other re-threaded examples of his work covering love, politics and the life we lead, all of which gain something new in this solitary environment. See randynewman. com.

Download tracks: Dixie Flyer, Kingfish, Losing You