Randy Newman-Ragtime (Music From The Motion Picture Plus Additional Music) (1981)


 

Artist: Randy Newman

Title: Ragtime (Music From The Motion Picture Plus Additional Music)

Label: Elektra/Rhino

Format: CD

Catalog Number:  R2 78245

Year of Release: 1981

Country and Year of Edition: US 2002

Sell Price: $8.46

Sell Date: 2/27/25

Condition: VG+/VG+

Discogs Last Sold: 2/27/25 NM/VG+ $10.76

Low:  $2.81 VG+/VG+ 5/31/22

Median: $8.37

Average: $8.63

High: $15.45 VG+/VG+ 2/2/25

Current Low Price: $19.99

Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 3

Have/Want: 68/20

Where Sold:  Alexandria, VA

Time It Took To Sell:  1 year

Where and When Bought: facebook cd lot

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: C+

Sad To See It Go: No

Even though I purchased this a little over a year ago, I had no recollection of buying Ragtime in a CD lot.  I guess I was looking at 1-2 dollar titles and got anything I didn't have with Randy Newman's name.  A fair enough assessment.  Anything Newman has released is worth hearing.

That said, this is first and foremost a soundtrack for a film I never saw.  I do remember it being reviewed by Siskel and Ebert when it was still on PBS.  Somehow, I didn't remember that the movie brought Jimmy Cagney out of retirement!  Sounds like an amazing movie and now it's at the top of my bucket list.  I rewatched One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest fairly recently and I last saw Hair as a kid with my parents when it was in the theatre.  I guess a double bill with Taking Off sounds about right for a Milos Forman double bill.  You really forget how America had a golden age of COMMERCIAL filmmaking with so much garbage to wade through in the last few decades.

Anyway, as for this album as a stand-alone, you might as well pull out The Sting and get your "Maple Leaf Rag."  There is one amazing song that stands out among the background film music and the lone Randy Newman vocal song "Change Your Way."  Of course, it is the one song NOT composed by Randy Newman!!!  Newman conducted the entire soundtrack including this as far as I can tell.  "I Could Love A Million Girls" is some of the best turn of the century hokum.  The Simpsons even parodied it.  You'd never guess who wrote the music to that one.

Edgar Allan Woolf, co-writer of The Wizard Of Oz.

FOR FURTHER REVIEW:

Trouble In Paradise (1983)

Peggy Lee-Is That All There Is? b/w Me and My Shadow (1969)

Elton John-Caribou (1974)


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