Steve Klink

Feels like Home
14 Songs by Randy Newmans

Steve Klink CD Fellslike home

Tracks:

  1. Lucinda
  2. Have You Seen My Baby ?
  3. I'll Be Home
  4. I Gotta Be Your Man
  5. Memo To My Son
  6. What Have You Done To Me *
  7. You've Got A Friend In Me
  8. Texas Girl At The Funeral Of Her Father
  9. A Wedding In Cherokee Country
  10. Short People
  11. Feels Like Home **
  12. Dayton, Ohio 1903 **
  13. Louisiana 1927 *
  14. Guilty *
 

Link to Randy Newman's Website

Buy this CD now: [US] [GB] [D]

Press Hightlights


Musicians:

Steve Klink - Piano
Dietmar Fuhr - Bass
Markus Rieck - Drums

Special guests:

Alex Olivari - guitar * [Website]
Mia Žnidarič - vocal ** [Website]

About "Feels Like Home":

Recorded at Topaz Studio in Cologne, Germany by Reinhard Kobialka on October 7th, 2000
**Recorded at Metro Studio in Ljubljana, Slovenia by Iztok Černe on September 22nd, 2000

Mastered by Elmar Gillet at Masterlab, Cologne

Produced by Steve Klink and Stephan Meyner
Photos by Achim Kröpsch
Design by Habets Firmendesign
Record Company: Minor Music MM801092


A Fan's notes

I could make a small list of the things I love about Randy Newman's music:

  1. the lyrics
  2. the piano playing
  3. the arrangements

Randy Newman's lyrics have a way of transporting the listener to a new time, space and dimension using just a few words. The record you hold in your hands is mostly without text. How is it possible to cover Randy Newman songs instrumentally? That was a question I asked myself when I started this project but for me the answer was simple: Randy Newman's music is great and is not just about words. And in the absence of words something even subtler is revealed, forms. Randy Newman is a master of form. Most of the songs on this record are not made up of typical 8/16 bar phrases (for example: "Guilty" has a 7-bar A section and an 8-bar bridge. "Wedding in Cherokee County has a 15-bar A section and a 4-bar bridge). But I would like to tell you more about Randy Newman's music.

I've always liked Randy Newman's piano playing. For those of you who don't know his music, he has an unbelievable knack of keeping each song on his records between two and a half and three minutes long. These musical statements are so well thought-out and precise that a longer version of his songs seems never to have been necessary. For me there are a few places, specific piano riffs of his that I always liked to play and on this record I have tried to expand on ("Memo To My Son"). I would love to do a whole record like this, based only on Randy Newman's piano playing.

Randy Newman has an amazing talent besides being a singer/songwriter and piano player. He can arrange. Using strings, brass bands, woodwinds or slide guitars he goes beyond arranging, he produces moods. Combine that with his subtle use of language and you have something that goes further than any "normal" idea of songwriting. He writes the text, he writes the music and then he takes this already strong framework to another level by paying attention to every possible detail in the song's musical presentation. We the listeners are presented with good, solid songwriting raised higher by symphonic orchestras, Ry Cooder's guitar playing or the Eagle's staple background vocals. No other songwriter has ever been able to control so many aspects of the musical process from written song to final product as Randy Newman. He uses this control to move us thoroughly and concisely to places we wouldn't normally be. Next to a corpse. Into the brain of a bigot. The past.

By far my favorite world of Randy Newman is his glimpse into American history, with a touch of nostalgia. Being from the midwest myself, songs like Dayton, Ohio 1903 and Louisiana 1927 make me say, "Yes! That is America." Randy Newman is somehow in tune with a vibration that spells out exactly what America really is, and was. This is not nationalism. It's a mentality and way-of-thinking. Certain values and how they reflect themselves. It's a similar feeling to when I read American novels like John Steinbeck's "East of Eden" or "The Grapes of Wrath". The characters, the situations, their language, are all American. Randy Newman takes you there and back in three minutes.

Some songs on this record have departed drastically from the original mood ("I Gotta Be Your Man", "You've Got A Friend In Me"). Others I tried to keep close to the original because that mood is the song. I decided to only put songs on this record that I really love. Songs that when I am feeling sad or ecstatic I simply have to listen to. Maybe this is why I have no problem playing these songs instrumentally.

I am a Randy Newman fan. I hope other fans will enjoy my view of this composer, singer/songwriter and arranger whose enormous body of music runs the entire gamut. And if you've never heard of Randy Newman, maybe you should check him out.