Are you looking for a class...

...about a songwriter who’s

“outrageous, alarming, courageous, and charming”?

(Have we got a class for you!)

SPRING 2015

 

 

Eng 213 Studies in American Literature –

Randy Newman’s American Voice(s)

M/W 10:50-12:05

Starting with his first album in 1968 and continuing through his most recent release in 2011

 (as well as many of his very popular film soundtracks), Randy Newman has populated his music with a series of characters that reflect the complexities and contradictions of the late-20^th-century and early 21^st-century United States.

Often misunderstood because of his preference for dramatic monologues (as opposed to the more personal/confessional approach of the rock/pop/folk singer-songwriter), Newman – steeped in our national, musical and cinematic history – offers his audience unflinching portraits of an array of outcasts, patriots, bigots, dreamers, simpletons, loners, and lovers struggling to understand our world, even as its very foundation seems to be shifting beneath them.

For more info:

 Dr. Gilbert L. Gigliotti

Department of English

Emma Hart Willard Hall 329

Central Connecticut State University

New Britain, CT 06050

 

860/832-2759     gigliotti@ccsu.edu

 

My Top 20 Sinatra Movie Songs

This list I compiled is at Blue-Eyes.com...

So, what do YOU think?

Happy 59th Birthday, Crystal Gayle!

While I'm not a big fan of any of her crossover country hits, Ms. Gayle is one-half of the duo that created one of the great movies soundtracks of the modern era, One from the Heart, with Tom Waits. ( The film is an intriguing product of Francis Ford Coppola and his short-lived Zoetrope Studios starring two of my favorite actresses, Nastassia Kinski and Teri Garr.)

"Tom Waits and Crystal Gayle?," you say dubiously.

You bet!

Pick it up and listen to Tom growl to Crystal, "How long you been combing your hair with a wrench?" or "You don't defrost the ice box with a ball point pen!"

Pick it up and listen to Crystal sing in that crystal-clear voice of hers, "Take me home, you silly boy, I'm still in love with you." If that doesn't break your heart, then you don't have one.