Randy Newman hit the music scene with little more than a whimper some thirty years back. I remember seeing a number of concerts that were sparsely attended in spite of the critical acclaim he was receiving. Perhaps it was the confusing image he portrayed; kind of nerdy, with this frizzy hair, he played a ragtime/classical piano style that was hardly part of the rock scene at the time, but lyrically tossed off barbs that cut through the toughest skin and made most of what passed for pissed off rock sound pale in the comparison. Then one day (in the heyday of NY commercial FM radio) WNEW played an album (they did that then) that, while not necessarily rocketing him to fame, certainly tossed him into the snake pit of commercial success. It's been twenty five years since the release of Sail Away, and on a whim I decided to go buy a CD copy to replace my horribly worn vinyl, and revisit what has always struck me as one of the more interesting recordings in American music.

Newman was (and still is) the odd-man-out in American pop music. He's a classically trained pianist from a family of composers with hundreds of movie soundtracks in their portfolio. (How many times have you seen "Newman" scroll by in credits?) His weird southern sensibility, urbane sarcasm and literary lyrics have made him an icon of hipness and a target of derision for almost three decades.

Sail Away still stands out as one of his greatest achievements. In it he manages to mix in political vituperation ("Sail Away"), jaded yet romantic nostalgia ("Dayton Ohio - 1903"), bitter irony ("Burn On" documents the fiery pollution of an Ohio river) and stark, raving mad humor ("Political Science" waxes philosophic on the joys of nuclear war and American domination). His complex yet subtle arrangements of piano, strings and a touch of rock always left him out of 60s-70s pop success, and even that gets commented on in "Lonely at the Top." But perhaps his most acid, telling and ultimately witty encounters seem to be with the Lord himself, as he takes two shots at religion in "That's Why I Love Mankind" and "He Gives Us All His Love," showing how subtle he can be, and how mean-spirited his vision of the world was.

Countless artists made their careers on Newman's songs over the years; Joe Cocker's "You Can Leave Your Hat On" (he recently re-recorded it with Newman at the keyboard); Harry Nilsson did an entire record of Newman's songs, Judy Collin's "I Think It's Going To Rain," and rockers, folkies and pop singers by the hundred's have taken his songs to the most diverse audiences in the world. He practically invented the pop "singer songwriter" genre. Randy Newman's vision on Sail Away was broader than much of went before him, and still stands firm 25 years later. - Cliff Furnald