Randy Newman

Few songwriters have turned a Southern drawl and an unreliable narrator to such pointed effect as Randy Newman. Born in Los Angeles to an extended family of Hollywood film composers, he builds his Americana-tinged songs on mordant, satirical lyrics, sung in a non-rhotic accent. Since the 1990s, much of his most visible work has been in film scoring, most prominently for Disney and Pixar.

His career began in the early 1960s with incidental music for television, followed by UK hits for Cilla Black, Gene Pitney and the Alan Price Set, including Pitney's 'Nobody Needs Your Love' at No. 2 in 1966. His own recordings brought 'Short People' (1977), 'I Love L.A.' (1983) and 'You've Got a Friend in Me' (1995), and three of his eleven studio albums, Good Old Boys, Little Criminals and Harps and Angels, reached the U.S. top 40. His film work has earned two Academy Awards, from 22 nominations, and he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013.