On The Randy Newman Songbook Vol. 2, which Nonesuch Records will release on May 10, Randy Newman takes a fresh look at both classic and more recent work in new solo recordings of his celebrated songs. Songbook Vol. 2, which was co-produced by Mitchell Froom and Lenny Waronker, includes songs spanning from the 1968 album Randy Newman through 2008’s Harps and Angels. Newman began his North American tour on February 11 and continues through April 22 in San Francisco. Newman performs his Oscar-nominated song from Toy Story 3 at the awards ceremony this Sunday.

Randy Newman continues his US tour with two stops in the Midwest this weekend. Last weekend, Newman received a Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for the film Toy Story 3. He's been nominated for an Academy Award for the song "We Belong Together" from the film and will perform it at the Oscars next weekend. Newman recently spoke about his scoring and songwriting on PBS's Tavis Smiley, which you can watch here.

Harps and Angels, the new musical featuring the music and lyrics of Randy Newman, officially opened at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles this week and runs through December 22. Variety calls the play "a sure cure for wintertime blues ... a showcase for his whiskey-soaked melodies and incisive poetic gifts." The Hollywood Reporter says: "All in all, it's a journey as simple, complex, contradictory and confounding as life itself—just what you'd expect from a fellow with the temperament of Huck Finn and the soul of a poet."

Harps and Angels, the new musical featuring the music and lyrics of Randy Newman, begins previews today at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. The show opens officially on November 21 and runs through December 22. Though it shares its name with Newman's latest Nonesuch release, the new production includes songs from that album and throughout his career. The show is directed by Jerry Zaks, with Katey Sagal and Michael McKean leading an ensemble cast.

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, the free outdoor music festival held in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, celebrates its 10th anniversary this year with a stellar line-up of performers that includes a number of Nonesuch artists—Carolina Chocolate Drops, Randy Newman, Emmylou Harris, and T Bone Burnett—along with several artists familiar to fans of Nonesuch. The festival will be held October 1–3.

Congratulation to Randy Newman, who is set to receive his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame this morning. Pixar's John Lasseter and Monty Python's Eric Idle are due to speak. The Independent described Newman's recent London performance as "riveting ... as a lyricist he's right up there with Cohen, Lennon and Dylan."

Randy Newman has announced that he will tour Europe in April and May 2010 to support the release of his acclaimed, best-selling album Harps and Angels, his first album of new material in nine years and the first record of his 40-year career ever to chart in the UK. The tour includes dates in Finland, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Ireland, UK, and Holland, and follows a February performance at UCLA in February.

Rolling Stone has announced its 100 Best Albums of the Decade, and five Nonesuch releases have made the list, including two albums from Wilco and one each from The Black Keys, Amadou & Mariam, and Brian Wilson. Wilco is also on the magazine's list of the decade's Top 100 Songs, for "Jesus, Etc.," joined by Randy Newman, for his Harps and Angels track "A Few Words in Defense of Our Country." OMM includes the Amadou & Mariam album and Ali Farka Touré's Savane on its list of the decade's Top 50.

Since the last Nonesuch Journal entry of 2008, which laid out scores of year-end best-of lists featuring Nonesuch albums and artists, still more critical praise has come in placing this music among the year's best.

While 2008 may go down as one of the more turbulent years in recent (or distant) memory, or, more optimistically, a time of change, there is much to celebrate in the year in music. Nonesuch artists across all genres have contributed to that and, accordingly, have made their way onto many critics' lists of the year's best. For the final Nonesuch Journal article of the year, we offer an overview of just some of that year-end critical praise.

"I'm always in the mood for Randy Newman lately," says author Sarah Vowell during her stint as guest DJ at KCRW. She includes Randy's song "The World Isn't Fair" among the five favorites she brings to KCRW's Guest DJ Project. In the song, Randy offers the success of certain "froggish men, unpleasant to see," with their beautiful Hollywood wives, as a contemporary example of capitalist disparities Karl Marx might find repugnant. "[T]he thing I really love about this song and it's something I guess I try to do writing about history," says Vowell, "is this song takes this turn in the middle."

With Black Friday thankfully behind us and so-called Cyber Monday now upon us, the Schenectady Daily Gazette offers a number of "gift-worthy recordings" out this year, including six Nonesuch recordings: Isabel Bayrakdarian's "sublime" Gomidas Songs, Ry Cooder's I, Flathead, Emmylou Harris's All I Intended to Be, Randy Newman's Harps and Angels, Orchestra Baobab's Made in Dakar, and Rokia Traoré's "haunting and heart-lifting" Tchamantché.