When Randy VanWarmer was fighting leukemia, he was also working on an album of Stephen Foster songs; he finished the album a few days after he got the terrible news. He struggled along for a while, and then he died, as it happened, on the anniversary of Stephen Foster’s death.
Since the bicentennial of Stephen Foster’s birth is this weekend, I thought it might be nice to listen to Randy VanWarmer’s album, and to remember Randy.
When the album came out, I was monumentally impressed. VanWarmer came out with two lesser-known but still-classic albums in the 1980s, Beat of Love and Terraform; he never stopped making records, but this was the first album, I thought, that could compete with those masterpieces. (Unless Neal Coty’s debut album Chance and Circumstance counts, on which Randy was a co-writer.)
It was a one-man show, VanWarmer played all the instruments, so it was very much a personal tribute, something like a collaboration would have created, if these two equally talented songwriters’ lives had overlapped. It was a weird and innovative thing, and this treatment of Foster’s familiar and overly familiar standards verges sometimes on campy, but VanWarmer was too sophisticated a musician to ever allow it to descend into kitsch.
The result, then, was a great and beautiful recording, and VanWarmer sounded better than he had in many years.
When I reviewed this on Amazon, just an awestruck and mourning fan, I advised listeners to play it on the best quality sound system they could find, it was that kind of aural landscape, but this doesn’t really apply anymore, you’ll listen to it on Spotify, and it’s still good. If you do happen to have a tremendous sound system, then by all means, give this a go. It’s worth it.
The backstory of this album gives the recording an additional element of depth and poignancy. Randy was one of Foster’s greatest interpreters (a very contrarian point of view, but that’s what Oblivioni is here for!) and a great musician. He is missed.
^^^
This article is by Steven S. Drachman.
Composite image of Randy VanWarmer and Stephen Foster designed by Kalyee Srithnam, from Randy’s original record album cover.