Paul Simon with Art Garfunkel, Phoebe Snow and Randy Newman - Saturday Night Live, NBC Studios, New York City, 10-18-1975

Recently, a commenter suggested that I should compile the musical performances from the "Saturday Night Live" T.V. show in the same way I compiled them from the "Playboy After Dark" T.V. show. That's a good idea, and I'll probably do that at some point. But in the meantime, there's this, as a kind of teaser. Did you know that in 1975, the first season of "Saturday Night Live," there was an episode that was almost entirely dedicated to musical performances related to Paul Simon, including a short reunion of Simon and Garfunkel? There was, and here's the music from it.

When "Saturday Night Live" got started, the show was still figuring out just what it would be. For instance, the first episode was unusual since all the comedic skirts were very short, less than two minutes long. Then this one was the second episode. It seems to have been an experiment in making the show much more musical than it turned out to be. In fact, the entire show was basically turned over to Paul Simon, like it was his personal T.V. special. He performed some songs, and picked other musical guests to perform other songs. He also did a couple of skirts, including one where he played basketball against a professional basketball player (Connie Hawkins, who was six feet, eight inches tall). The joke was that Simon is short, at five feet, two inches, so he would make a terrible basketball player. The regular cast was barely seen at all, other than the news update section.

In 1975, Simon was having a moment. Simon and Garfunkel broke up in 1970, and at first the commercial success of his solo career was much lower. But his 1975 album "Still Crazy After All These Years" went all the way to Number One in the U.S. album charts, helped by the hit single "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover," which also went to Number One. This show took place only a couple of weeks after that album was released. 

His new album contained "My Little Town," the first Simon and Garfunkel collaboration on record since they broke up in 1970. So Simon had Art Garfunkel on the show to perform that song, plus two others. Garfunkel also got to sing a song by himself. 

 

Simon also used the show to shine the spotlight on some of his favorite musical acts. Not only did Randy Newman perform a song, but Simon actually sang one of Newman's songs himself, "Marie." This is a really special treat, since Simon almost never did cover songs. I haven't seen this cover version anywhere. 

Phoebe Snow was also having her moment of commercial success, thanks to her hit single "Poetry Man." But she chose not to sing that, and did "No Regrets," a song done by Billie Holiday, instead. Plus, Snow and the Jessy Dixon Singers helped out on "Gone at Last," just like they did on Simon's previous album. 

I wasn't able to find this music circulating as an audio bootleg, except for the three Simon & Garfunkel songs. So I found a high quality version of the video, converted it to audio, and chopped it into mp3s. I cut out everything that wasn't related to the music, like the few comedic skirts. That was about 20 minutes of material. I carefully edited the transitions to cut out the commercial breaks and things like that, so it would sound like a continuous concert.

This album is 39 minutes long. 

01 Still Crazy After All These Years (Paul Simon)
02 talk (Paul Simon)
03 Loves Me like a Rock (Paul Simon & the Jessy Dixon Singers)
04 Marie (Paul Simon)
05 talk (Paul Simon)
06 Sail Away (Randy Newman)
07 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
08 The Boxer (Simon & Garfunkel)
09 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
10 Scarborough Fair (Simon & Garfunkel)
11 My Little Town (Simon & Garfunkel)
12 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
13 I Only Have Eyes for You (Art Garfunkel)
14 talk (Paul Simon & Phoebe Snow)
15 No Regrets (Phoebe Snow)
16 Gone at Last (Paul Simon, Phoebe Snow & the Jessy Dixon Singers)
17 American Tune (Paul Simon)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/m4tnWz4R

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/9k79ChfHUojnDep/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took of a video of this exact concert. It shows Phoebe Snow and Paul Simon singing "Gone at Last." For the font, I used the colors and style of the T.V. show.

Covered: Randy Newman, Volume 3: 1999-2025

Here's the third and final volume of the "Covered" series for Randy Newman.

Newman's usual solo albums have been released less frequently as he gets older, which is usually the case for songwriters. By now, 2026, he averages about one album a decade. But unlike a lot of aging songwriters, he's kept his standards high. Pretty much every album he's made has been critically praised. 

But he's been much busier and prolific with his other career, composing soundtracks for Hollywood movies. I mentioned in the write-up for "Volume 2" that his career got a big boost starting in 1995, when he composed the soundtrack for the first "Toy Story" movie. That led him to a new line of work making soundtracks for blockbuster movies for kids, such as the other "Toy Story" movies (including "Toy Story 6," released in 2026), "Cars," "A Bug's Life," "Monsters, Inc.," and more. Most of those are a mix of songs with lyrics and background music. I didn't find a lot of songs from these movies sung by others that fit this collection, but there are a few in this volume. 

Some others are from earlier in his career. For instance, "Burn On," a 1972 song based on a true incident of the Cuyahoga River, which runs through Cleveland, Ohio, catching fire in 1969 due to excessive pollution. 

All the songs in all three volumes were officially released, except for the last two on this volume. "I'm Dead (But I Don't Know It)" is from Randy Newman's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2013. It's sung by Newman and Don Henley. The album ends with "I Love L.A.," one of Newman's better known songs. I had trouble finding a worthy version, until I found this one. It comes from the 2025 Grammy Awards ceremony, and features a bunch of stars singing together.

This album is 49 minutes long. 

01 When She Loved Me (Sarah McLachlan)
02 If I Didn't Have You (Billy Crystal & John Goodman)
03 Every Time It Rains (Joe Cocker)
04 Rider in the Rain (Reckless Kelly & Joe Ely)
05 Texas Girl at the Funeral of Her Father (Kim Richey)
06 Marie (Allison Moorer)
07 Our Town (James Taylor)
08 Burn On (Mason Williams)
09 I Will Go Sailing No More (Los Lobos)
10 Almost There (Anika Noni Rose)
11 Down in New Orleans (Dr. John)
12 Losing You (Mavis Staples)
13 It's Lonely at the Top (Big Bad Voodoo Daddy)
14 I'm Dead [But I Don't Know It] (Don Henley & Randy Newman)
15 I Love L.A. (Dawes, John Legend, St. Vincent, Brittany Howard, Brad Paisley & Sheryl Crow)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ZoccZuhY

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/zKj0ZEWCA6LlgOM/file

The cover image is from 1995.

Covered: Randy Newman, Volume 2: 1973-1999

Here's the second out of three "Covered" albums for singer-songwriter Randy Newman.

As I mentioned in "Volume 1," in the early 1970s, Newman was considered a cult albums, very critically acclaimed, but with not much commercial success for his own career. Even the many covers of his songs were rarely hits, though there were exceptions, especially "Mama Told Me (Not to Come)," which was a Number One hit in the U.S. for Three Dog Night in 1970.

But things changed drastically for him in 1977, with the song "Short People." To pretty much everyone's surprise, his version was an massive novelty hit. It made it all the way to Number Two in the U.S., kept out of the top spot only by the all-time classic "Stayin' Alive" by the Bee Gees. It was wildly misunderstood, to say the least. A great many of his songs are sarcastic. For instance, his great song "Political Science" sarcastically advocates for blowing up the world with nuclear weapons. Many people who heard "Short People" didn't realize it was a sarcastic attack on prejudice by pointing out how silly it would be to hate short people for no reason, including ignoring the lyrics of the bridge, which explicitly run counter to the rest of the song. 

But in any case, the song made him a household name, even though his overall sales still didn't increase much. His only two really big hits on the singles charts remain "Short People" and "Mama Told Me (Not to Come)." Since Newman's version of "Short People" is so well known, it's the only song in this series I've included that's performed by him.

I also want to give a special mention to "Sail Away." I think it's an incredible song. But it also shows how unique his songwriting is, and how easy it can be for people to misunderstand his songs if they don't pay attention. It's basically an advertisement for a slave trader prior to the Civil War, attempting to coax Black Africans to come to the U.S. for a better life, when in fact the trader is tricking them into slavery. Yet somehow this sarcastic premise becomes a powerful song about the evils of slavery. It's been widely covered, including by the likes of Bobby Darin, Etta James, Linda Ronstadt, Ray Charles, Gladys Knight, Joe Cocker, and Kirsty MacColl. It was hard for me to pick just one cover, but I thought the version by Etta James is extra powerful.

From the start of Newman's songwriting career, he'd had a sideline writing instrumental music for T.V. shows, which then led to movie soundtrack work. That began way back in 1962, as I mentioned in the previous volume. His first movie soundtrack was in 1971. He did a few more movies here and there over the next couple decades. But his career took a turn in 1995, when he did the soundtrack for the hit movie "Toy Story." One song he did for that, "You've Got a Friend in Me," wasn't a hit per se, barely reaching the singles chart. But it became widely known, and widely beloved by children, and it's gone on to sell over three million copies! Surely that makes it one of the best selling non-hits ever. 

For that song, I've included a duet version between Newman and Lyle Lovett, since it's an interesting one that's also much less well known than the version just featuring Newman.

This album is 50 minutes long. 

01 Have You Seen My Baby [Hold On] (Ringo Starr)
02 Sail Away (Etta James)
03 Last Night I Had a Dream (Fanny)
04 Let's Burn Down the Cornfield (Etta James)
05 Naked Man (Grass Roots)
06 Lucinda (Joe Cocker)
07 Short People (Randy Newman)
08 Baltimore (Nina Simone)
09 Mr. President (Marshall Tucker Band)
10 You Can Leave Your Hat On (Joe Cocker)
11 Louisiana 1927 (Aaron Neville)
12 Political Science (Everything but the Girl)
13 You've Got a Friend in Me (Randy Newman & Lyle Lovett)
14 Feels like Home (Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt & Dolly Parton)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/6SB3U9ZA

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/f6YT8V3gAvHLIQ3/file 

The cover image is from 1978.

Covered: Randy Newman, Volume 1: 1963-1973

Whenever I think about the "Covered" series of albums I've made, I get frustrated, because I've got dozens that I've never gotten around to posting. I guess I enjoy the making of the albums more than the steps needed to post them. It feels like unfinished homework. But I'm going to make more of an effort to fix that, starting with a triple-header of Randy Newman.

Here's some highlights from his Wikipedia entry:  

"[Newman] is an American singer-songwriter, pianist, composer, and arranger. Born in Los Angeles to an extended family of Hollywood film composers, he is known for his Americana-inspired songs, non-rhotic Southern-accented singing style, and typically mordant or satirical lyrics. Since the 1990s, he has worked mainly in film scoring, most popularly for Disney and Pixar. ... Newman has received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards (out of 22 nominations), three Emmys, seven Grammy Awards, as well as nominations for a BAFTA Award and seven Golden Globe Awards. His award-winning film work includes 'Ragtime' (1981), 'The Natural' (1984), 'Toy Story' (1995), 'A Bug's Life' (1998), 'Pleasantville' (1998), 'Monsters, Inc.' (2001), 'Cars' (2006), 'The Princess and the Frog' (2009), 'Toy Story 3' (2010), and 'Marriage Story' (2019). He was honored with the Recording Academy's Governors Award in 2003, a Disney Legend award in 2007, and inductions into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2002 and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013."

As mentioned above, he was born in Los Angeles. But he also spent many of his childhood summers in New Orleans. That would prove to be important, because his songwriting would be heavily influenced by New Orleans styles. And also as mentioned above, he was part of an extended family of Hollywood film composers. His mother and father had regular jobs (as secretary and internist, respectively), but three of his uncles were film composers, and so were three cousins. 

He began writing songs professionally by the age of 17. He put out a single under his own name in 1962, but it flopped. So he decided to try writing songs for others for a while. He began having successes almost immediately. The first song here, "Hold Your Head High" by Jackie DeShannon, is from 1963. 

Also very early on, he began writing instrumental music for TV shows, starting with an episode of "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis" in 1962. That talent would continue to grow, leading to him to eventually doing full movie soundtracks starting in 1971. More on that in a later volume though.

Alan Price helped boost Newman's songwriting career in 1967. For one thing, he had a hit with Newman's "Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear." But also, he was so taken by Newman's songwriting that his 1967 album "A Price on His Head" had no less than seven songs by Newman. Harry Nilsson paid him an even bigger compliment by covering an entire album of his songs in 1970, "Nilsson Sings Newman."

Newman finally released his first album under his own name in 1968, "Randy Newman (Creates Something New Under the Sun)." It was a critical success, and it led to even more musical acts covering his songs, but it didn't sell well. It didn't even reach the top 200 U.S. albums chart. For the next ten years or so, he would continue to be a cult artist, meaning he was critically praised and beloved by a small group of fans, but didn't have much wider commercial success. 

Meanwhile, his songwriting continued to get better and better. It arguably peaked with his 1972 album "Sail Away," though he has maintained remarkably high consistency for his entire career. Rolling Stone Magazine has put that album on their list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. His 1974 album "Good Old Boys" would also make that list, though lower down it.

Newman's songwriting is extraordinary, but it's also idiosyncratic, with frequent heavy sarcasm. Some songs have general romantic themes that lend themselves to being covered a lot, for instance "I Think It's Going to Rain Today." There are over a 100 different cover versions of that one. But then consider a song like "God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind)." It's a sarcastic song about how God seemingly could care less about the human race, and even laughs at the calamities it throws at humanity. I think it's a great song, with deep meaning, but it's not exactly typical Top Forty subject material! So there are a lot of songs I would have wanted to include but didn't, because either there's no cover versions at all, or at least no worthy covers. And I've followed my usual rule for the "Covered" series of generally not including versions by Newman himself (although he'll show up with one song in a later volume, and in a duet in the other volume).

Note that some of the best songs written by Newman during this time period only show up in one of the later two volumes. So if you don't see a favorite, wait to see what's on those first. 

This album is 52 minutes long. 

01 Hold Your Head High (Jackie DeShannon)
02 Baby, Don't Look Down (Billy Storm)
03 I've Been Wrong Before (Cilla Black)
04 Nobody Needs Your Love (Gene Pitney)
05 Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear (Alan Price Set)
06 Snow (Claudine Longet)
07 Illinois (Everly Brothers)
08 I Think It's Going to Rain Today (Dusty Springfield)
09 Just One Smile (Blood Sweat & Tears)
10 Bet No One Ever Hurt This Bad (Linda Ronstadt)
11 Love Story (Peggy Lee)
12 Dayton, Ohio, 1903 (Wayne Fontana)
13 Mama Told Me [Not to Come] (Three Dog Night)
14 Cowboy (Nilsson)
15 The Beehive State (Doobie Brothers)
16 Living without You (Manfred Mann's Earth Band)
17 God's Song [That's Why I Love Mankind] (Etta James)
18 Guilty (Bonnie Raitt)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/i6jjx6vk

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/JKPIcpuJQBtagaN/file

The cover photo is from 1968.

Randy Newman - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: Sight and Sound, Planet Theatre, Slough, Britain, 2-26-1983

Here's another BBC concert album by Randy Newman. It's from the BBC TV show "Sight and Sound."

This will probably be the last BBC album from him, unless something else emerges. Actually, there is one more BBC concert he did, but I don't plan on posting it, because it's been officially released as the album "Live in London" in 2011.

In early 1983, Newman released the album "Trouble in Paradise." It was one of his best sellers, helped along by the popular song "I Love L.A." Many of the songs here come from that album, although he avoided that song (either that or the BBC edited it from a longer concert).

The music is unreleased, and the sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 41 minutes long. 

01 talk (Randy Newman)
02 Simon Smith and His Amazing Dancing Bear (Randy Newman)
03 Birmingham (Randy Newman)
04 talk (Randy Newman)
05 A Real Emotional Girl (Randy Newman)
06 talk (Randy Newman)
07 Christmas in Cape Town (Randy Newman)
08 Short People (Randy Newman)
09 talk (Randy Newman)
10 God's Song [That's Why I Love Mankind] (Randy Newman)
11 talk (Randy Newman)
12 The Blues (Randy Newman)
13 talk (Randy Newman)
14 The Girls in My Life [Part One] (Randy Newman)
15 Rednecks (Randy Newman)
16 talk (Randy Newman)
17 Jolly Coppers on Parade (Randy Newman)
18 Baltimore (Randy Newman)
19 talk (Randy Newman)
20 My Life Is Good (Randy Newman)
21 talk (Randy Newman)
22 Political Science (Randy Newman)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/NzVhj4Vp

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/T4YkMgVViA5nvlf/file

The cover photo is from an appearance on the "Saturday Night Live" TV show, on February 26, 1983.

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.

Randy Newman - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: In Concert, Paris Theatre, London, Britain, 3-6-1974

A couple of weeks ago (writing this in early November 2025), I posted a Randy Newman BBC album from 1978, and called it "BBC Sessions, Volume 1." I had heard of another BBC concert he did in 1974, but I looked high and low and couldn't find it anywhere. I'm happy to say it now has been found, and here it is. So that 1978 album has now been retitled "Volume 2."

The reason this has been found is due to a helper nicknamed Progsprog. This person has sent me a lot of very rare BBC material I plan on posting in the weeks to come. In this case, I had looked all over for this concert for a long time, so it was for all practical purposes out of public circulation. So an extra big thanks to him.

In 1974, Newman released the album "Good Old Boys," which was his critique of life in the Deep South region of the U.S. However, that album wasn't released until September 1974, and this concert took place in March. Still, he performed three songs from it, "Birmingham," "Marie," and "A Wedding in Cherokee County." 

The music here is unreleased (and very hard to find, up until now!). The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 32 minutes long. 

01 talk by Alan Black (Randy Newman)
02 Lover's Prayer (Randy Newman)
03 talk (Randy Newman)
04 You Can Leave Your Hat On (Randy Newman)
05 Marie (Randy Newman)
06 Simon Smith and His Amazing Dancing Bear (Randy Newman)
07 talk (Randy Newman)
08 I'll Be Home (Randy Newman)
09 talk (Randy Newman)
10 Birmingham (Randy Newman)
11 talk (Randy Newman)
12 A Wedding in Cherokee County (Randy Newman)
13 talk (Randy Newman)
14 Old Kentucky Home (Randy Newman)
15 talk (Randy Newman)
16 Political Science (Randy Newman)
17 Dayton, Ohio - 1903 (Randy Newman)
18 talk (Randy Newman)
19 I Think It's Gonna Rain Today (Randy Newman) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/MJCtF4iA 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/9k4Ezv70Jdo8jVW/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from an appearance on German TV in 1974. 

Randy Newman - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: Old Grey Whistle Test, BBC Television Theatre, London, Britain, 6-6-1978

Here's a short BBC concert by American singer-songwriter Randy Newman, from 1978. He performed this with a small band.

The Old Grey Whistle Test (OGWT) was a BBC TV show that ran from 1971 until 1987. It featured a lot of live music, especially rock and roll. Usually, each episode featured a couple of songs from several musical acts, but sometimes an entire episode would be devoted to a single act, like this concert I'm presenting here. I've previously posted some OGWT concerts here. I've just created a new label for OGWT, and I count 12 episode-length concerts, plus other songs from the show here and there. I've wanted to post more, but many of the ones I had been looking for I was unable to find.

However, a couple of days ago, I found a person on SoulseekQT who is sharing virtually all the available OGWT episodes from 1971 to 1980. (A small number appear to be lost, and even the official website for the show doesn't know the details for those.) I'm pretty happy about this. Expect me to celebrate by posting a bunch of OGWT-sourced albums in the coming days. The only snag is that these come as a single video file, so I have to concert them to audio and then cut them into mp3s, as I did with this one.

I'm starting posting these recently discovered OGWT concerts with this one, because it's one that I had been looking for for a long time. Randy Newman had been critically acclaimed since he released his first album in 1968. But his first wider commercial success happened in 1977, with the song "Short People." It went all the way to Number Two in the U.S. singles chart, held back from the top spot only by the mega-hit "Stayin' Alive" by the Bee Gees. Curiously, the song didn't chart in Britain whatsoever. But it seems it still gave him enough fame to merit his first BBC concert. 

(And by the way, note that "Short People" was supposed to make fun of people making fun of short people, but a lot of people didn't understand his sarcasm. He has a lot of other sarcastic songs, such as "Political Science," performed here, which basically advocates global nuclear war.)

The music is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent.  

This album is 39 minutes long. 

UPDATE: On October 5, 2025, I updated the mp3 download file. The music is exactly the same. But I found a 1974 concert by him I'd previously missed, so I renamed the album to "Volume 2." 

01 talk by Bob Harris (Randy Newman)
02 Birmingham (Randy Newman)
03 talk (Randy Newman)
04 Leave Your Hat On (Randy Newman)
05 Texas Girl at the Funeral of Her Father (Randy Newman)
06 talk (Randy Newman)
07 Short People (Randy Newman)
08 Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear (Randy Newman)
09 talk (Randy Newman)
10 In Germany Before the War (Randy Newman)
11 talk (Randy Newman)
12 Political Science (Randy Newman)
13 talk (Randy Newman)
14 Rider in the Rain (Randy Newman)
15 I Think It's Gonna Rain Today (Randy Newman)
16 Rednecks (Randy Newman)
17 Guilty (Randy Newman)
18 Sail Away (Randy Newman)
19 It's Lonely at the Top (Randy Newman)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/tqsmQtMw

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/urJF9l92ZnuH3Wf/file

The cover image is from this exact concert. I took it from a BBC website page describing this concert (though the link the music is dead). The top of his head was cropped out, but I used Photoshop to extend the image.

Lyle Lovett with Randy Newman - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 12-18-2002

Here's another "PBS Soundstage" concert. I'm prioritizing posting the ones with key guest stars. This one is mainly a Lyle Lovett concert, but Randy Newman sings two songs with Lovett, and sings two more songs on his own.

Mark Isham is also a guest on two songs. He plays trumpet and keyboards, but he's mainly known for composing hundreds of movie and TV scores.

In February 2003, Lovett released an album called "Smile: Songs from the Movies." It was a compilation of songs he'd done for various movies in the previous ten years. This concert took place two months prior to the release of that album, but was timed to be broadcast on TV after the release. Lovett took the theme of the album seriously, because most of the songs he performed in this concert are from movie soundtracks.

Note by the way that "Mack the Knife" is a song originally written in German in 1928 by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, under the title "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer." It was later translated into English and became a huge hit for Bobby Darin in 1959. However, the translation was a loose one, shortening the song and taking out a lot of the gruesome violence. In 1976, a new translation was done that's much longer. This version is typically called "Moritat." That's the version Lovett did for a 1994 movie soundtrack, and performed in this concert. I've included both "Moritat" and "Mack the Knife" in the title.

By the way, Newman had his own Soundstage episode in 1974, but I can't find any recording of it. If anyone has it, please let me know. 

This episode is unreleased, but the sound quality is excellent.

This album is an hour and 21 minutes long.

01 talk (Lyle Lovett)
02 Blue Skies (Lyle Lovett)
03 talk (Lyle Lovett)
04 Straighten Up and Fly Right (Lyle Lovett)
05 talk (Lyle Lovett)
06 Smile (Lyle Lovett)
07 Gee Baby, Ain't I Good to You (Lyle Lovett)
08 talk (Lyle Lovett)
09 Summer Wind (Lyle Lovett)
10 talk (Lyle Lovett)
11 Mack the Knife [Moritat] (Lyle Lovett with Mark Isham)
12 talk (Lyle Lovett)
13 Walking Tall (Lyle Lovett)
14 talk (Lyle Lovett)
15 You've Got a Friend in Me (Lyle Lovett & Randy Newman)
16 talk (Lyle Lovett & Randy Newman)
17 Political Science (Lyle Lovett & Randy Newman)
18 talk (Lyle Lovett & Randy Newman)
19 I Think It's Going to Rain Today (Lyle Lovett & Randy Newman)
20 If I Had a Boat (Lyle Lovett)
21 talk (Lyle Lovett)
22 That's Right, You're Not from Texas (Lyle Lovett)
23 talk (Lyle Lovett)
24 Long Tall Texan (Lyle Lovett with Randy Newman)
25 talk (Lyle Lovett)
26 What Do You Do (Lyle Lovett with Francine Reed)
27 Church (Lyle Lovett)
28 talk (Lyle Lovett)
29 What'd I Say (Lyle Lovett)
30 talk (Lyle Lovett)
31 I'm a Soldier in the Army of the Lord (Lyle Lovett)
32 talk (Lyle Lovett)
33 I'm Gonna Wait (Lyle Lovett with Mark Isham)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/48GxFzYj

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/znJifglgHgeuWSQ/file

The cover is a screenshot from this exact concert, with Newman at the piano and Lovett singing into a microphone. Actually, it's three screenshots. The video I took this from was really low-res. So I took screenshots of different sections, for instance one of just Lovett's head. Then I resized them and used Photoshop to merge them into one. After that, I used Krea AI to improve the image quality overall.

Various Artists - Children of the Americas Radiothon, United Nations Building, New York City, and Palace Theatre, Los Angeles, CA, 11-12-1988

Here's another big benefit concert with a bunch of different famous musical acts. But this one was unusual in a couple of ways. For one, it was held in two locations simultaneously and broadcast live over the radio. And for the other, it's quite an odd selection of acts. I like all of them, but it seems pretty random to me to have, say, Pat Benatar followed by Al Stewart, then followed by Midnight Oil, and so on, which is what happened here. But hey, it's all good music, with excellent sound quality.

This benefit concert certainly had a good cause, which was to fund non-profits helping poor children in Latin America. This was the second annual concert for this cause. I don't know anything about the first concert or subsequent ones. But we know about this one because it was broadcast live on the radio, and a bootleg recording of it survives.

I made many, many edits to make this listenable. The concert took the form of a radiothon, which is just like a telethon, except for the radio instead of TV. And if you're familiar with telethons at all, you know they're notorious for constantly asking for donations. That's what happened here. Between acts, and even during acts, there were emcees giving pleas to donate, with the donation phone number in particular repeated endlessly. Even the musical artists would sometimes mention the phone number between songs. I got rid of all that because it's all moot now, with the number obviously no longer working. I stripped this down to just the music and the banter relevant to the music.

I also did some edits to make this flow better. Oftentimes, as soon as a song wound end, the emcee's voice would come on with more pleas for donations. So I would patch in some more applause to give the songs a decent sounding ending. I didn't bother marking those edits with "[Edit]" in the song titles, 'cos I did it so much.

Some of the acts performed at the Palace Theatre in Los Angeles. Those were Jackson Browne, Midnight Oil, and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (CSNY), plus earlier appearances by Graham Nash and David Crosby. All the other acts performed at the United Nations Building in New York City. Note that the crowd in Los Angeles sounds much larger than the one in New York City. I'm guessing only a few dozen were allowed into the United Nations Building for this, based on the clapping one can hear.  

The star attraction here was CSNY. They put out a new album in 1988, "American Dream," but Neil Young decided not to take part in a tour to support it. However, he did take part in a very limited number of concerts with CSN around this time. There was the Bridge Benefit in 1988 (which I have also posted here), the Bridge Benefit in 1989, and this. (There also were a couple more in 1987 and 1990 and 1991, if you want to go that far.)

It's quite possible that there was more to these two concerts that what was heard here. For instance, there was no introduction to the CSNY set, and I doubt they started with the new song "This Old House." It also seems odd that Midnight Oil would have been recruited but only played less than ten minutes of music. I'm guessing this is just the stuff that made it to the radio broadcast, and while music was broadcast from one location, we were probably missing the music taking place at the other location. If anyone has any more of it, please let me know.  

This album is two hours and 25 minutes long.

01 Teach Your Children (Graham Nash)
02 talk (Emcee)
03 I Love L.A. (Randy Newman)
04 Dixie Flyer (Randy Newman)
05 Sail Away (Randy Newman)
06 talk (Randy Newman)
07 Political Science (Randy Newman)
08 Short People (Randy Newman)
09 talk (Randy Newman)
10 I Want You to Hurt like I Do (Randy Newman)
11 talk (David Crosby)
12 Crow on the Cradle (Jackson Browne & Graham Nash)
13 talk (David Crosby)
14 talk (Jackson Browne)
15 Lives in the Balance (Jackson Browne with David Crosby & Graham Nash)
16 talk (Jackson Browne)
17 My Personal Revenge (Jackson Browne with Sangre Machuwa)
18 talk (Jackson Browne)
19 Fruita Almarga [Bitter Fruit] (Jackson Browne)
20 talk (Jackson Browne)
21 Lene Verde [Instrumental] (Jackson Browne with Sangre Machuwa)
22 talk (Graham Nash)
23 Rock Me on the Water (Jackson Browne with David Crosby & Graham Nash)
24 Powerful Stuff (Fabulous Thunderbirds)
25 talk (Fabulous Thunderbirds)
26 Look at That, Look at That (Fabulous Thunderbirds)
27 talk (Fabulous Thunderbirds)
28 She's Tough (Fabulous Thunderbirds)
29 talk (Fabulous Thunderbirds)
30 Wrap It Up (Fabulous Thunderbirds)
31 talk (Pat Benatar)
32 All Fired Up (Pat Benatar)
33 Run Between the Raindrops (Pat Benatar)
34 talk (Pat Benatar)
35 Let's Stay Together (Pat Benatar)
36 talk (Emcee)
37 Antarctica (Al Stewart)
38 talk (Al Stewart)
39 Princess Olivia (Al Stewart)
40 The Year of the Cat (Al Stewart)
41 talk (Graham Nash)
42 Wealth Is Virtue (Midnight Oil)
43 The Dead Heart (Midnight Oil)
44 This Old House (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
45 Love the One You're With (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
46 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
47 Name of Love (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
48 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
49 Tracks in the Dust (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
50 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
51 Don't Say Goodbye (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
52 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
53 Southern Cross (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
54 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
55 Long Time Gone (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
56 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
57 My Country 'Tis of Thee (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young with J. D. Souther)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/DQZ2b6A2

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/z8t3Ajl7bhZ3NZF/file

I found the cover image from some promotional art related to this concert. It's a drawing of all the major stars that took part. In the top row, from left to right: Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. In the bottom row, from left to right: Jackson Browne, Pat Benatar, Peter Garrett of Midnight Oil, and Randy Newman. The banner at the top was in the original, but I changed the text there, and added more text at the bottom. 

I couldn't find any actual photos from this concert, so I'm lucky to have found this.

Randy Newman - KSAN, Boarding House, San Francisco, CA, 6-11-1972

American singer-songwriter Randy Newman hasn't released much in the way of live performances from his early years. That's a shame, because he did solo shows with just him playing a piano, which allowed one to hear his songs in a more stripped down style than the album versions. This tries to rectify that.

He did put out one live album in 1971, simply called "Live." But there are two problems with that album, in my opinion. First, it's very short, at only 28 minutes long. And secondly, it was recorded in 1970. He'd only put out two solo albums by then. This concert comes after the release of his classic 1972 album "Sail Away," giving him stronger material to work with. Songs from that album like "Sail Away," "Political Science," "You Can Leave Your hat On," and "God's Song (That’s Why I Love Mankind)" are all time greats in my opinion, and they're all performed here.

The sound quality of this concert is excellent because it was professionally recorded and played by a San Francisco radio station. The only minor snag is that there were two points during the concert when an overdubbed voice came out to remind listeners of the radio station's call letter. Using the X-Minus audio editing program, I wiped out those mentions. Those are the two songs with "[Edit]" in their titles.

Newman's singing and/or musical style isn't for everyone. But if you're into talented songwriting, he's up there at the top with a handful of other legends.

This album is 50 minutes long. That's still short as concerts usually go, but it appears to be the full show.

01 talk [by Tom Donahue] (Randy Newman)
02 Lover's Prayer (Randy Newman)
03 You Can Leave Your Hat On (Randy Newman)
04 Dayton Ohio,1903 (Randy Newman)
05 talk (Randy Newman)
06 Yellow Man (Randy Newman)
07 talk (Randy Newman)
08 Lucinda (Randy Newman)
09 Living without You [Edit] (Randy Newman)
10 Beehive State (Randy Newman)
11 Linda (Randy Newman)
12 Old Kentucky Home (Randy Newman)
13 Suzanne (Randy Newman)
14 talk (Randy Newman)
15 Memo to My Son (Randy Newman)
16 Political Science (Randy Newman)
17 Last Night I Had a Dream (Randy Newman)
18 talk (Randy Newman)
19 God's Song [That’s Why I Love Mankind] (Randy Newman)
20 Burn On (Randy Newman)
21 Sail Away (Randy Newman)
22 I Think It's Going to Rain Today [Edit] (Randy Newman)
23 Lonely at the Top (Randy Newman)
24 Davy the Fat Boy (Randy Newman)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376665/RANDNWMN1972KSNBordngHousSnFrncscoCA__6-11-1972_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from the right year, 1972, but the wrong place, Amsterdam.