Some people come to a Randy Newman show expecting to hear one of the gentle, reassuring numbers he's written for movies, like "You've Got a Friend in Me" from "Toy Story." But while he'll usually perform one of those soundtrack songs onstage, most of the material in the show is designed to provoke, not comfort.

	Urs Flueeler/KEYSTONE Randy Newman's successes include 16 Oscar nominations and one win, as well as critically acclaimed CDs such as "Good Old Boys," a concept album about the South. Click photo for larger image.

"I play the one song," he says, "and then they heckle me for the rest of the show."

Newman, 62, is on the phone from his hotel room in France, where he performed at the Nice Jazz Festival as a much louder Kanye West played nearby. ("Jesus walked through half my show," Newman cracks, referring to the rapper's 2004 hit.)

It's been nearly 30 years since his only hit as a performer, but Newman has become a familiar presence through his work in high-profile movies and his many appearances on the Oscar telecast (he has 16 nominations and one win). Yet it is the music from his pop albums, especially his early '70s LPs, that has made him a revered figure among his peers.

"I've never met a songwriter that I've thought was worth a darn that didn't love Randy Newman," says Nashville singer-songwriter Allison Moorer.

Moorer is one of 12 acts featured on the Sugar Hill label's new tribute CD, "Sail Away: The Songs of Randy Newman." Both Moorer and her husband, country-rock renegade Steve Earle, chose songs from Newman's audacious 1974 concept album on the South, "Good Old Boys."

"I think he sees it for what it is," Moorer says of the longtime Los Angeles resident's view of the South. "He sees the beauty; he also sees the tragedy. I think we Southerners who do see it that way love it when somebody else does."

No one tries to copy Newman's original arrangements, which typically pair his Fats Domino-style piano with string settings recalling the Hollywood scores of his uncles, Alfred and Lionel Newman. Moorer, for instance, performs "Marie" with an overdubbed mandolin "orchestra" played by Sam Bush.

The album's producer, Steve Fishell, says he wasn't surprised that notables such as Bela Fleck, the Del McCoury Band and even Guster accepted the invitation.

"He may be our greatest living songwriter," Fishell says. "He writes songs on multiple levels. He will set you up with a really simple, sweet melody, and he'll write something about infanticide or world destruction or bigotry."

The CD's title track, sung here by bluegrasser Tim O'Brien, weds an achingly beautiful melody to the words of a slave trader enticing Africans to board his ship with promises of a life of leisure in America.

Then there's the scathing "Rednecks," sung here over crunchy electric guitar by Earle. "That song is a double-edged sword," Fishell says. "You start off hearing this racist talk about black people, and you're shocked, and you want to hate this person, and then Newman turns the song around on you."

The album also features "Louisiana 1927," a song about a catastrophic flood that was adopted by artists like Aaron Neville after Hurricane Katrina hit. Here it's performed by Louisianan Sonny Landreth.

Newman, who was born in New Orleans, says he is appalled by the corruption and incompetence he's seen in the aftermath of the storm.

"Everyone's always laughed at ... the kind of government they had and just sort of winked at it, but you know when something like this happens, you want things to function, and nothing does," he says. "But the federal government's the worst of all. ... I was talking to Dr. John, and he's scandalized. And it takes a lot to scandalize someone from New Orleans."

One song that's not on the tribute CD is "Short People," a blunt attempt to ridicule prejudice that became Newman's only pop hit, in 1977. Newman says it's not the one he would have picked.

"It will be in my obituary, the first sentence," he says. "That's the one big mark I've made on the country. It's not a bad song. I mean there's songs I like less that I've written. But I would rather have had a hit with almost anything else."

Although Newman has received Oscar nominations for his scores to dramas like "The Natural" and "Seabiscuit," he says most of his film offers these days are for cartoons. "I'd like to do a dramatic picture, but I don't get offered 'em," Newman says.

He is trying out a couple of new songs on tour, he says. One is a work in progress he is calling "A Few Words in Defense of My Country," in which he sings, "The leaders we have may be the worst that we've had, but they're hardly the worst that this poor world has ever seen," before elaborating on the shortcomings of rulers such as Nero and Caligula.

Newman plans to release an album of new songs -- his first since 1999 -- on Nonesuch next spring.

"I have a song called 'Fat and Angry,' " he says. "I could call the album that. I don't know."