-- Reviews by the Famous and well Known
I first met Del Newman in 1970. My then manager Miles Copeland had just secured a recording contract with MCA records. The producer of that record Derek Lawrence had hired Del to arrange the music for the material I was going to record. At that time I was very much cast in the mould of the singer songwriter. Later on in my career I dropped the vocals to concentrate on instrumental music, but that is another story.
I remember that first meeting so well. It was in a basement flat in Earls Court. Del and I were sat at his piano, me with guitar in hand, slowly going through the pieces we were working on. It was the first time I had ever worked with an arranger and found the whole process utterly fascinating. From the word go this man was full of encouragement,patience and enthusiasm for the material I was presenting.
Since those far off days of the early 70's Del and I have worked on three recording projects. The MCA of 1970, one in 1973 and in 1997 my Troubadour album which Del arranged and produced. To this day I regard this as my finest work, and I take great pride in the fact that Del came out of retirement to work with me.
To watch Del Newman at work is to watch a man at the height of his powers. The way he communicates with an orchestra is a joy to behold. One knows instinctively that the musicians before him have the highest regard and respect for his gifts as arranger and conductor.
There is always mutual respect here. To hear Del Newman weave his special magic on something one has written can be a very moving experience.
In my opinion there is a very thin line between arrangement and composition and I have always felt that some of his superbly crafted arrangements could be stand alone pieces. Such is their beauty.
The many and varied artists that Del has worked with reads like a virtual Who's Who of legendary music icons from Cat Stevens( Yusuf Islam) through to Sir Paul McCartney with Paul Simon, Charles Aznavour, Elton John and many more in between. The list goes on!
Although Del to all intents and purposes has retired from the music business he hasn't for one minute sat on his laurels, basking in past glories. This book is testament to that fact. Retirement, if that indeed is the correct terminology, has given him the freedom to pursue the things he has been yearning to do for years. These days he spends much of his time composing. For a man who has spent most of his professional career writing for others, I say 'about time sir'.Oh, and I forgot to mention that he also teaches piano to a small number of students in his village. Mr Newman is without doubt busier than ever.
I feel very privileged to have been asked to write the foreword to this amazing and entertaining book and indeed to have been a small part of his long and distinguished career.
I am indeed proud to call him my friend.
Gordon Giltrap, Acoustic and Electric Guitarist and Composer - Written the Foreword
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-- Newspaper and Website Reviews
A TOUCH FROM GOD
County Times
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A TOUCH FROM GOD
Halifax Courier
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A TOUCH FROM GOD
Carmarthen Journal
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Book review: A Touch from God by Del Newman
What do Cat Stevens, Andy Williams, Paul McCartney and Andrew Lloyd Webber have in common?
If you answered Del Newman you’d win a prize...if you replied ‘don’t know’ then let us explain.
Del is one of modern music’s backroom boys. No, not a tea maker - that’s the assistant producer - but an orchestral arranger without whom most of the hits you have in your mind’s jukebox would be as flat as your pet dog singing Puccini.
Del’s written his autobiography and the more cynical will read it as an exercise in name-dropping.
The more discerning, however, will realise that everything we think we know about pop, rock or whatever is not entirely what we think it is on a personalities level...on a musical level it would be nothing were it not for the Midas touch that people like Del bring.
He’s been responsible for helping give structure and feeling to artists such as the above and a raft of others including Paul Simon, Elton John, Rod Stewart, Johnny Mathis...and Uri Geller.
So what does he have to say? Quite a lot, really, and not at all what you might expect. As someone who has worked so closely with many of the giants (and midgets) of the modern music world, Del has seen beneath the veneer of many a music image.
He doesn’t always like what he sees but is mostly favourably inclined to those whom we sometimes choose to put on a pedestal.
A few choice pickings include: George Harrison - ‘I never wanted to see that gentleman again’; Elton John - ‘generous, compassionate...and shy’; Andrew Lloyd Webber - ‘It is said that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and to me he was a wonderful example of this.’
There are no holds barred criticisms of the music business, especially of the dealings and consequences of the Svengalis, the arrogance (one man wanting to put up a blue plaque on the wall of his house - to himself) and the shadowy side of popular figures.
But this is no hiss and tell...he is full of praise for the likes of Neil Sedaka, Charles Aznavour and Gordon Giltrap; impressed by the talents of rock groups like Squeeze and...Max and The Meteors, anybody?...and is quick to relate his own shortcomings when he crosses the likes of Rod Stewart (who rang him back to say no hard feelings after a drink or two).
Needless to say, Del and the modern X Factor world are at loggerheads...
He’s a principled (and mightily talented) man is our Del and he relates his hundreds of anecdotes with a matter-of-fact style that only someone as gifted and valued in his world can afford to utter.
If you have more than a passing interest in the ‘pop’ music world then this excellent book is well worth searching out. If your idea of pop is instant Warhol 15 minutes of fame, prepare for an education.
Lancashire Evening Post
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A TOUCH FROM GOD
South Wales Evening Post
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BOOK NOTES ROCK CAREER
AN orchestral arranger who has worked with some of rock music's greats will be in Swansea next month, signing copies of his book, which gives an insight into his distinguished 35-year career.
Del Newman has worked on albums by Elton John, Paul McCartney and Rod Stewart, and recounts the highs and lows in A Touch From God — It's Only Rock and Roll.
He will be at Waterstones bookshop, in Oxford Street, on Saturday, May 8, from 12.30pm until 2.30pm.
South Wales Evening Post
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A TOUCH FROM GOD
Ipswich 24 Magazine
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A TOUCH FROM GOD
The Brit (Madeira Newspaper)
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A TOUCH FROM GOD
Review by Stephan Heimbecher
The new book from Del Newman takes the reader on a trip down memory lane sharing fascinating insights into the life of an orchestral arranger who has worked with all the big names in the music industry.
I have to admit that the name Del Newman didn't immediately ring a bell for me. It was some 30 pages into the book that I learned that besides Cat Stevens, Rod Stewart, The Beatles, Charles Aznavour, Roger Daltry, Peter Frampton, Diana Ross, Paul Simon, Neil Sedaka, Chris de Burgh, Dave Stewart and many others, Del has also worked with Elton John.
After meeting Elton first at a music publisher's recording session with singer Linda Peters in the early Seventies, Del was later asked to orchestrate tracks from the album "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" as Paul Buckmaster was indisposed at the time. The tracks he worked on are "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road", "Sweet Painted Lady", "I've Seen That Movie Too", "Roy Rogers", "The Ballad of Danny Bailey" and "Harmony". The following year Del was also responsible for the orchestra arrangement for "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me", the last work he did for Elton.
Del's narrative style takes you right back to the early Seventies into the the recording studio The Chateau. He sucks you right into the scene, making you feel like being part of the event, being there with Elton and the band in the middle of the recording session. Along the way Del shares some anecdotes about Elton's generosity and working with producer Gus Dudgeon. Del makes you feel like a friend that he is sharing this stories with over a glass of beer or two.
As the book is basically structured in chapters which deal with a particular artist or band, the reader gets to learn a lot of personal and less known things about many of the big names of the music industry in the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties. A fascinating and enthralling trip with Del acting as your tour guide.
But it was long before those personal and almost intimate descriptions of working with the stars that I mentally bonded with Del just after reading the three pages of his prologue. Despite the fact that I wasn't even born at the time Del was diving into the world of orchestral arrangements, I can very much relate with his comments about the way the music business worked back then compared to today. Del is very outspoken about his personal opinion and even his stories about working with all those different artists, which - in his words - "were a mixture ranging from saints to sinners", are frank but miles away from kiss-and-tell.
A must-read for every true music fan this book is the "Access all areas" pass for everyone that always wanted to know how the music business works - or used to work.
www.eltonfan.net
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Last week I detailed the weird experience of Louisiana rocker Jaze Wade who has been declared clinically dead no less than three times, and the profound effect such experiences have had upon his outlook on life. This week we'll take a look at another music legend, Del Newman, and his own strange encounters with the unknown.
Del has worked on albums by Paul McCartney, Rod Stewart, Elton John, 10cc, Cat Stevens, Neil Sedaka, Art Garfunkel and many more artists, and is one of the UK's top orchestral arrangers and conductors. He has recently released his autobiography A Touch from God – Its Only Rock and Roll, and in it he provides a fascinating, warts-and-all insight into the world of the professional musician.
Del was born to a West African mother and Irish father, but was eventually adopted by the Newman family in Kent. The Newmans had an old piano, and Del loved playing on it so much that he started to take music lessons at the age of seven. During World War II he was evacuated to the village of Hanging Heaton in West Yorkshire, where his love of tinkling with the ivories continued unabated.
"I had a wonderful time there", he told me when I interviewed him. "We only had one bomb drop there, and it landed in a field".
Later, Del joined the Royal Navy, and when stationed on a cruiser he found his musical tastes greatly influenced by the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók. The rest, as they say, is history.
In 1988, Del and his wife moved to Wales from Gloucestershire, and took up residence in an old vicarage. They'd often have friends round to stay, but there was one particular bedroom in the house which always had an icy atmosphere and was never popular with visitors.
One friend did spend the night in the room, however, with startling consequences. He was woken at 3am by a noise, and was amazed to see a man in Elizabethan costume standing at the foot of the bed. The chap just smiled and then receded through one of the walls. The friend had obviously seen a ghost.
Del then related another incident to me.
"When I was younger", he said, "a friend and I were invited to a party. My pal mixed his drinks and ended up being sick, which required a quick trip to the bathroom. You know how it is. Anyway, on coming back downstairs he asked the woman who owned the flat, 'What's the name of your cat?'"
"Puzzled, she asked my friend, 'What cat?' He described the moggy he'd seen near the bathroom, and was astonished when she told him that it had been her pet, but that it had actually died six years earlier".
Del doesn't claim to have had many strange encounters during his life – a life which has been filled with myriad rich experiences in the music business – but admitted to me that he'd once felt the sheets being pulled from his bed during the night by something in the room.
"I might have been dreaming, of course", he told me, "…but I don't think so".
Del Newman's book is a fascinating account of the life of a professional musician, and the foreword was written by none other than Gordon Giltrap, who was a regular on Top of the Pops and the Old Grey Whistle Test more years ago than I care to remember.
Del also once had a series of extraordinary encounters with Uri Geller, which he describes in detail in A Touch from God. Intrigued? You should be, and can read more in the book itself. Don't miss it.
A Touch from God: Its Only Rock & Roll by Del Newman is published by Apex Publishing, priced at £12.99 and is available from Amazon.co.uk and good book stores.
The Shields Gazette
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-- Radio and TV
4 May 2010 - Del Newman was interviewed on Swansea Sound 1170 MW. Del answered questions about his book 'A Touch From God: It's Only Rock and Roll'.
Swansea Sound 1170 MW
12 May 2010 - Del Newman was interviewed on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire 96 FM. Del answered questions about his book 'A Touch From God: It's Only Rock and Roll'. Del was interviewed on 'The Sue Marchant Show'.
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire 96 FM
14 May 2010 - Del Newman was interviewed on BBC Radio Bristol 94.9 FM. Del answered questions about his book 'A Touch From God: It's Only Rock and Roll'. Del was interviewed on 'The Keith Warmington Show'.
BBC Radio Bristol 94.9 FM
18 May 2010 - Del Newman was interviewed on Sine 102.6 FM. Del answered questions about his book 'A Touch From God: It's Only Rock and Roll'.
Sine 102.6 FM
3 June 2010 - Del Newman was interviewed on Lionheart Radio 107.3 FM. Del answered questions about his book 'A Touch From God: It's Only Rock and Roll'.
Lionheart Radio 107.3 FM
June 2010 - Del Newman was interviewed on Manx Radio about his book 'A Touch From God: It's Only Rock And Roll'
Manx Radio
25 June 2010 - Review of Del Newman's book 'A Touch From God: It's Only Rock & Roll'
Sine 102.6 FM
Indeed fascinating, well written and will, I'm sure, prove of wide interest.
Andrew Monaghan, Radio Forth One 97.3 FM
Del Newman is well known in the UK music biz as a classically trained journeyman who contributed string arrangements for a vast array of talents including Rod Stewart, Elton John, Charles Aznavour, Leo Sayer, Art Garfunkel and dozens more. Del also produced quite a few albums in his own right. Each chapter begins with a phrase like "Meeting Cat Stevens was an unexpected occasion" or "One of my most satisfying associations was working with Randy VanWarmer" and, after awhile, the reminiscences of studio or live concert encounters becomes rather stilted and lacking in any particular insight. The structure is not helped by what was probably an editor proofing in some rather irrelevant factual information into each short pen picture of a celebrity. Another problem is that there are very few years given and one is left with a series of reminiscences in no particular chronological order. There are a few fascinating pieces - George Harrison throwing a tantrum in a studio or one or two industry people cheating Del out of the appropriate royalties - but on the whole this is a strangely fragmented work which could have been vastly improved by a coherent structure (and for that matter, an index). The reference to God in the title is rather misleading too. Del isn't a Christian and the piece near the end when he writes for a few pages about working with Christian acts in Sweden and Nashville is ruined by his failure to identify who the actual bands are!
Cross Rhythms City Radio 101.8 FM
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10 July 2010 - Del Newman was interviewed on BBC Radio Merseyside 95.8 FM. Del answered questions about his book 'A Touch From God: it's Only Rock and Roll'.
BBC Radio Merseyside 95.8 FM
15 September 2010 - Del Newman was interviewed on BBC Radio Kent 96.7 FM. Del answered questions about his book 'A Touch From God'.
BBC Radio Kent 96.7 FM
12 October 2010 - Del Newman was interviewed on Express 93.7 FM. Del answered questions about his book 'A Touch From God'.
Express 93.7 FM
25 October 2010 - Del Newman was interviewed on Pulse 98.4 FM. Del answered questions about his book 'A Touch From God'.
Pulse 98.4 FM
-- Book Signings and Events
Del Newman signed copies of his book 'A Touch From God: It's Only Rock and Roll' at Waterstone's, Swansea.
Waterstone's, Swansea
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Del Newman signed copies of his book 'A Touch From God: It's Only Rock and Roll' at Waterstone's, Carmarthen.
Waterstone's, Carmarthen
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Del Newman signed copies of his book 'A Touch From God: It's Only Rock and Roll' at Waterstone’s, Liverpool One.
Waterstone’s, Liverpool One
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Del Newman signed copies of his book 'A Touch From God: It's Only Rock and Roll' at Waterstone's, Southport.
Waterstone's, Southport
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Del Newman signed copies of his book 'A Touch From God: It's Only Rock and Roll' at Waterstone’s, Trafford Centre, Manchester.
Waterstone’s, Trafford Centre, Manchester
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Del Newman signed copies of his book 'A Touch From God: It's Only Rock and Roll' at Waterstone's, Wigan.
Waterstone's, Wigan
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Del Newman signed copies of his book 'A Touch From God: It's Only Rock and Roll' at Waterstone's,Tunbridge Wells.
Waterstone's,Tunbridge Wells
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Del Newman signed copies of his book 'A Touch From God: It's Only Rock and Roll' at Waterstone's, Hastings.
Waterstone's, Hastings
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