12 Songs

After an orchestrated debut that won critical praise but had no commercial pulse, Randy Newman and producer Lenny Waronker tried a stripped-down approach for the follow-up, 12 Songs. An even larger critical hit, the album appears regularly on lists of the greatest albums of the rock era, despite containing very little that’s considered rock ’n’ roll. “Mama Told Me Not to Come” was a huge hit for Three Dog Night, and nearly every song here became a concert favorite. The album firmly established Newman as a master craftsman with a twisted and often dark side; unlike his singer/songwriting peers, he didn't write about himself but of characters with a variety of unusual faults. “Old Kentucky Home” was far from Stephen Foster. “Suzanne” was even further from Leonard Cohen’s poetry, and like many of Newman’s “love” songs, it flirts with obsession. Ry Cooder nicely works over “Let’s Burn Down the Cornfield” and joins an excellent group of backing musicians, including Clarence White, Ron Elliot, Gene Parsons, and Jim Gordon. The Fats Domino rock ’n’ roll of “Have You Seen My Baby?” served as the album’s lone single.