Saturday, November 22, 2025

Randy Newman with Dr. John & Maria Muldaur: The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 9-27-1974

Here's another episode of the "Midnight Special" TV show. The host of this episode was singer-songwriter Randy Newman. He was one of the top vote getters in the poll I posted asking for most desired episodes from this show, getting the sixth most votes. But this show is shared with Maria Muldaur and Dr. John as well, with both of them getting nearly as much time as Newman.

This 1974 episode was nearly the only time Newman appeared live on the show. (He would perform one more song in 1978.) He was allowed to play eight songs, which is more than usual for this show, but then again, his songs tend to be rather short. Normally, with these shows, I just post the music from the host, plus sometimes one other guest, sometimes not, and ignore the rest. But for this one, I chose two include two guests. That's because Dr. John and Muldaur played a song together, "Three Dollar Bill," as can be seen on the cover image, and I thought their musical styles fit well with Newman's. 

All the songs come from this concert, except for two. It turns out the only other time Muldaur performed for the show was in the February 22, 1974 episode, when she played two songs, including her Number One hit "Midnight at the Oasis." So I slipped those two into the show near the end, tracks 20 and 21. Dr. John also performed two songs for the show in 1973, but I've included them on a Gladys Knight and the Pips album already. He would return to the show later as a guest in 1977 and 1979. Hopefully, I'll post those songs when they become available.

In case you're curious, the only other musical acts on this episode were Flo and Eddie of the Turtles, and Ry Cooder. Flo and Eddie performed four songs, but I didn't think they made a good fit with Newman and the others, so I didn't include them. Cooder only performed one song.   

Unfortunately, as often happens with this show, the last song, "Louisiana 1927," was cut off due to the broadcast coming to an end. The cut off happened during the last chorus in the song. So I was able to patch in the rest of the chorus from earlier in the song. But still, the song needed a proper ending for its last few seconds. I resorted to using a few seconds from a Newman concert on the "Live at the Record Plant" radio show in 1974. (I plan on posting all of that radio show episode eventually.) So that's why this one song has "[Edit]" in its title. 

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. As usual with episodes from the TV show, I did a lot of editing by adding more applause to smooth the transitions between songs. 

This album is 58 minutes long. 

01 Mama Told Me Not to Come (Randy Newman)
02 talk (Randy Newman)
03 Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear (Randy Newman)
04 talk (Randy Newman)
05 Political Science (Randy Newman)
06 Davy and the Fat Boy (Randy Newman)
07 Sweetheart (Maria Muldaur)
08 talk (Randy Newman)
09 Let's Make a Better World (Dr. John)
10 talk (Dr. John)
11 Desitively Bonnaroo (Dr. John)
12 I Think It's Going to Rain Today (Randy Newman)
13 Three Dollar Bill (Dr. John & Maria Muldaur)
14 Lover Man [Oh, Where Can You Be] (Maria Muldaur)
15 Squeeze Me (Maria Muldaur)
16 Rolling (Randy Newman)
17 Mos' Scocious (Dr. John)
18 He Gives Us All His Love (Randy Newman)
19 Mama Don't Allow [Edit] (Dr. John)
20 Don't You Feel My Leg (Maria Muldaur)
21 Midnight at the Oasis (Maria Muldaur)
22 talk (Randy Newman)
23 Louisiana 1927 [Edit] (Randy Newman) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/4Ctrgf88

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/d7IVkVT0hXDttHL/file

For the cover image, I could have taken a screenshot of Randy Newman singing and playing the piano. But I figure there are plenty of those. Whereas there probably aren't any publicly available images of Maria Muldaur and Dr. John together. So I took a screenshot of that from this exact concert.

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