The name Randy Edelman may not automatically ring a bell, but unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve undoubtedly heard the piano-playing composer’s work, whether you realize it or not.
Barry Manilow’s “Weekend in New England” or The Carpenters’ “I Can’t Make Music?” Edelman wrote those songs. Are you a big film fan whose tastes run from comedies (Ghostbusters II, Billy Madison) and thrillers (Anaconda) to period dramas (Gettysburg, Last of the Mohicans), fantasies (Dragonheart, The Indian in the Cupboard) and rom-coms (While You Were Sleeping)? That’s all Edelman, too.
It’s a mind-boggling résumé that will be partially on display when Edelman comes to Cinema Arts Centre, where he’ll be participating in a Q&A and performing a bit following a screening of the 1994 Jim Carrey comedy The Mask. Yes, yet another film with an Edelman score. For the Garden State native, it’s the latest stop on a whirlwind schedule that includes him playing two-hour recitals of his material from both the worlds of pop music and cinematic scoring.
“When you do these concerts, you learn what people are interested in,” Edelman said. “Luckily for me, they are interested in the music and in hearing the music for comedies like My Cousin Vinny, Twins, Kindergarten Cop and The Mask. Also, big things like Gettysburg, Dragonheart, and The Last of the Mohicans.
“I play the different aspects and found that that’s really a strong part of the evening, because people are really into listening to it and they know the films. They may not know the quote or the music, but they know the films. I go through it. I don’t sing a note, and then the rest of it are a lot of songs I did, and songs of mine that loads of people covered.”
He added, “I’ve recently been adding arrangements of really cool standards that I like, and put in a certain style that I kind of evolved. It’s all of the above. It’s the film and TV scores like MacGyver, which ran for years. It’s so funny to hear people react to that kind of thing. I go into that theme and they go nuts. What I found is if they’re coming to see me, they’re into the stuff, and so it’s all in there. And the songs. I’ll play a couple of songs they know, like “Weekend in New England,” which Barry Manilow did. Or other songs I wrote that were recorded by Patti LaBelle of the Carpenters.”
If you go back to Edelman’s childhood growing up in Teaneck, NJ, his career track was destined for medicine despite experiencing a childhood that started out with him noodling on the family’s living room spinet piano. His interests quietly grew into an obsession with music he didn’t share with anyone (“I was pretty much like all the kids except I had this interest. I wasn’t in the school orchestra. I didn’t have a band, but I liked all kinds of music.”)
It all changed when Edelman went away to attend the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, where he quickly abandoned the pre-med path. Having falsely claimed to be a songwriter in his efforts to impress a girl, Edelman found himself booking recording time at nearby King Records, a storied music label whose most successful artist was James Brown. It was the Godfather of Funk who noticed the neophyte composer and hired him for cheap.
“I went in, wrote some songs, brought kids from the school, and James Brown saw me,” Edelman recalled. “At that time, if you were making records and needed a string section, you went to Columbia Records in Chicago or to Memphis, where they had Booker T and that whole Stax thing. I was 16 and wrote these string parts. They said, ‘We can hire this kid, and he can bring these kids who can play violins.
“So, I did, and that’s where I worked over a period of [time] and loved it. It’s not like I had a close relationship [with James Brown]. He saw me, a teenager, and a way they could save money. They would give me $100, and I paid the kids $50 of it. And they were happy.”
Edelman returned to New York City, where he played piano in Broadway pit orchestras while simultaneously working as a staff writer for April/Blackwood Publishers for $50 a week. Coming off a bad breakup, the 20-year-old composer recorded a 1972 solo effort that included the song “Piano Picker.” Richard Carpenter heard it and decided to record Edelman’s cut with his sister Karen for The Carpenters’ 1972 studio effort A Song for You. Throughout the remainder of the decade, as Edelman was finding success in England, myriad artists — including Dionne Warwick, Blood Sweat & Tears and Olivia Newton-John — were recording his songs. The most successful Edelman cover was Barry Manilow’s reading of the 1976 Top 10 hit “Weekend in New England.”
READ ALSO: Getting naked (and personal): Valerie Bertinelli’s quiet work of becoming perfectly imperfect
And while Edelman was eventually signed to a deal by Arista Records head honcho Clive Davis, the former’s solo career never blew up commercially in the States. By now living in Los Angeles, Edelman’s major career pivot came when the late Ivan Reitman tapped him to score the 1988 comedy Twins. It was an opportunity the conservatory-trained composer couldn’t have predicted.
“I never thought [composing scores] was going to be my main thing,” Edelman admitted. “Being an artist and writing songs was a much sexier and more lucrative thing than film composing. But that was my entry into the big-time scoring thing. I was thrown into the fire with Twins, which was a huge thing. It didn’t just happen when I wanted to score films; it happened at the right time, and boom, that’s what started things.”
In the subsequent three-and-a-half decades-plus, Edelman’s second career has not only found him working with a wide array of directors, including Michael Mann, Ron Howard, Alan Parker and Christopher Nolan, but providing his talents to entities ranging from HBO and ESPN to the Olympics and NASA. Nowadays, it’s about returning to the world of singer-songwriting and occasionally dipping his toe back into film composing on his own terms.
“My experience in this music business is pretty unique,” Edelman said. “People are usually into one thing, even if they want to do other things. Now that I can kind of look back, I’m still feeling pretty good and have a lot of passion and energy. It’s evolved into different areas. I’d done my albums at the beginning, and had the albums exploded, I wouldn’t have ever been able to do anything that I did.”
Randy Edelman will be appearing on March 13 at Cinema Arts Centre, 423 Park Ave., Huntington. For more information, visit cinemaartscentre.org or call 631-423-761.
