Randy Newman at home in Pacific Palisades in 2017. The musician and songwriter is the subject of a new biography by former Times pop music critic Robert Hilburn. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) ...

Randy Newman, Music’s Most Biting Storyteller, Gets His Own Story Told: Ex-L.A. Times Critic Robert Hilburn on Penning the Singer-Composer’s Biography ...

The life of Randy Newman, a rock star without the rock. Robert Hilburn’s “A Few Words in Defense of Our Country” is a biography of a musician famous for both sarcasm and sentiment.

Dylan’s testimonial is one of many in “A Few Words in Defense of Our Country: The Biography of Randy Newman,” by the former Los Angeles Times pop critic Robert Hilburn (out Oct. 22).

For the last 55 years or so, you’ve had a friend in Randy Newman, if you have a thing for songs that offer eviscerating, uncompromising, even devastating dissections of the human condition and ...

But pinpointing Randy Newman the man is much more elusive, even though the author had full access and participation of his subject and his archives. We know that Randy Newman has self-doubt.

The performance was visceral and devastating. “Louisiana 1927,” a classic from Randy Newman’s album “Good Old Boys” (1974), ...

Newman, 80, is a serious, complicated man who deserves a serious, complicated biography. Robert Hilburn’s new book, “A Few Words in Defense of Our Country: The Biography of Randy Newman,” is ...

In his new book, A Few Words in Defense of Our Country: The Biography of Randy Newman, Robert Hilburn, a former pop-music critic for the Los Angeles Times, set out to come to terms with Newman’s ...

Randy Newman is the subject of a new biography, 'A Few Words in Defense of Our Country,' from longtime Los Angeles Times music critic Robert Hilburn.

Randy Newman, Music’s Most Biting Storyteller, Gets His Own Story Told: Ex-L.A. Times Critic Robert Hilburn on Penning the Singer-Composer’s Biography ...