“How Could I Let You Go” by Randy Edelman Reviewed
The thing about composing movie scores is that it leaps out of singer songwriter tropes to more like the THC of popular music: it is a mood enhancer. This is true of John Williams and it was true of Ennio Morricone, and it is equally true of the prolific Randy Edelman, who can hang with the best of them. His career is a flame burning through celluloid doing precisely what he does: magnifying emotions we are watching on the screen.
But that isn’t all he has done, at the beginning of his career the lush and handsome Edelman was primed to become a major heartthrob until Barry Manilow picked up “Weekend In New York” and pushed Randy to further follow his instincts with pop songs composed for the likes of The Carpenters and Dionne Warwick, Rosemary Clooney, Bing Crosby, Labelle.
Edelman composed a score in 2021, as well as signing to Tribeca Records and releasing the single most heartwarming song about the pandemic, “Comin’ out the other side” also from 2021; a song so powerful and anthemic it lifts you out of masks and vaccines to a return to living. Yesterday, Randy dropped the follow up, “How Could I Let You Go”, and it is nothing like “Comin’ Out”, for one thing the singer is CHIŌMA and not Randy and she is using her wide vocal range, from soprano to falsetto as she keeps the minor key and still soars upward on the chorus. It is a beautifully written, and absolutely arranged with a sound that shimmers, “How Could I Let You Go” is written to a standstill and CHIŌMA sings it very movingly I want you back in a beautiful MOR ballad, tailor made for a Whitney Houston, or a Mariah Carey, this is a man who wrote for Karen Carpenter, he knows what to do with women’s voices (and throws in one line himself here towards the end!). It’s a sad song which struggles from loss to hope, it hides its betrayal in key changes.
So it looks as though Randy is returning to his first love, and hopefully we can expect an entire album of this glorious moment in his career. In the interim, Edelman is performing at Chelsea Table + Stage on Saturday, February 26th (tickets here)… See you there…
Grade: A-
