Tracklisting:

1 Red Eye (3:28)

Words and music, Larry Williams and Randy Goodrum

2 More Of This (3:51)

Words and music, Larry Williams and Randy Goodrum

3 Hocus Pocus (3:29)

Words and music, Larry Williams and Randy Goodrum

4 We Shine (3:56)

Words and music,Randy Goodrum

5 Hannah (4:00)

Words and music,Randy Goodrum

6 From Here (3:29)

Words and music,Douglas Carr and Randy Goodrum

Indeed, Goodrum’s intuition has paid off repeatedly through the years: He has written major hit records for artists such as Anne Murray (the 1978 chart-topper “You Needed Me”), Journey vocalist Steve Perry (the top 5 “Oh Sherrie”) and many others (including Kenny Rogers and Dottie West, Toto and Michael Johnson), and has collaborated with such music industry legends as Chet Atkins and Jerry Reed—all in addition to releasing a string of highly regarded solo albums.

Randy Goodrum originally hailed from Hot Springs, Arkansas, where his earliest influence was his own father, a physician by day but also a world-class guitarist. Another was Randy’s older brother, whose noodlings on the piano were quickly absorbed by the youngster. When Randy’s parents caught wind of the boy’s dedication to the instrument, they sent him off to take piano lessons. “I wanted to learn properly, and had dreams as early as grade school of being a professional musician someday,” Goodrum says.

Like many young music students, his interest drifted as he discovered sports and other distractions. Not for long though. “I must have been the only person who actually went back to their parents and said, ‘I want to take lessons again.’ My mom looked at me and said, ‘Are you kidding?’”

Goodrum clarified that he was indeed serious, but added that he wanted to find a teacher who could show him how to play jazz. John Puckett, a local master pianist took on the young student and, from that point on, Randy never looked back. By the time he was in the eighth grade, he already had a good idea of where his life was heading. “I sat down with my dad and I said, ‘I need to decide now whether I’m going to be a musician or whether I’m going to be a doctor like you.’ He said, ‘Are you dying to be a doctor?’ I said, ‘Well, no.’ ‘Well, what about music?’” his father asked. “I said, ‘Well, I love it,’” Randy replied. “‘I think you’ve already made your decision,’” his dad said.

While he was still in high school, Goodrum began playing semi-professionally, earning enough to actually put some money into a savings account. His reputation as a fine player spread throughout the school, and one day he received a call from a kid who was a year ahead of him, inquiring whether Randy might want to start a band. “He was a tenor sax player,” Goodrum recalls. “He said, ‘I hear you’re really good at playing by ear and you know a lot of the old standards.’” Randy replied in the affirmative. Soon the piano-sax-drums trio was on its way. Years later, Goodrum would perform at the inaugurations of that saxophonist—Bill Clinton— when he became the Governor of Arkansas and later President of the United States!

“I never, ever intended to be a songwriter,” Goodrum says. “Not that I was against it. I wasn’t, but it just never entered my mind.” But then, during his freshman year, a friend in the music department approached him with a proposition: “‘Hey, there’s the school musical, and they’ve asked me to write the music score for it. The trick is I don’t have time to do it.’” Randy agreed to give it a day, which turned into weeks, which turned into successfully writing all the songs for the musical, “but the good news was that introduced me to songwriting.” After that experience of writing for the school musical, “I immediately started trying to write actual songs,” Randy says. “They were awful songs,” he admits now, but he had discovered a new love.

Randy continued to play music while attending Arkansas’ Hendrix College, majoring in piano. Just after graduation, he married his girlfriend Gail, started a family and soon after went into the Army, before beginning a series of moves to various parts of the country, seeking work as a musician. It wasn’t always a breeze, but he persisted. He’d begun composing songs while in college, which gave him a new outlet in addition to his piano work.

His various moves—to Nashville, Connecticut, Los Angeles—taught Goodrum to focus on his strengths. He learned what worked for him and also what didn’t. “L.A. was a little daunting,” he says, but when a friend suggested Nashville, Goodrum balked. “No, I don’t want to go there. I said, ‘I’m not country at all.’” But when his friend said, “There’s a lot of different things going on here,” Randy decided to give Music City a try. Soon he was getting gigs, most notably accompanying the legendary singer Roy Orbison, of “Oh Pretty Woman” fame. Goodrum served in Orbison’s road band and played on one of his albums, and that led to a similar gig with another legend, Jerry Reed, the guitarist and singer known for such huge hits as “Amos Moses” and “When You’re Hot, You’re Hot.”

Next, Randy was recruited by one of the greatest names ever to come out of the Nashville scene, Chet Atkins, the master guitarist and producer. Atkins came to treasure Goodrum’s input into his music so much that when another country star, Porter Wagoner, inquired who the young man accompanying Chet was, Atkins told him, “He’s my teacher.”

Goodrum was enjoying his stints with these giants of the business, but he was itching to make a name for himself. His songwriting chops had improved steadily, and “It’s Sad to Belong,” recorded by England Dan and John Ford Coley reached number 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1977.

By the following year, Goodrum was on a roll: His song “Before My Heart Finds Out” went to number 23 for singer Gene Cotton and “Bluer Than Blue,” recorded by Michael Johnson, vaulted to number 12.

But Goodrum’s biggest hit hit, without a doubt, came that summer. A song he’d written, “You Needed Me,” was pitched to Cher, Helen Reddy and Anne Murray, with the latter deciding to cut it in the studio. The recording skyrocketed all the way to number 1 on the pop charts and number 4 country, winning Murray the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. Goodrum was nominated in the Song of the Year category as well, and although he did not take home the final prize, there was no denying that he had arrived. He continued to place his songs with leading artists, including a pair by Dottie West that topped the country chart, 1980’s “A Lesson in Leavin’,” and the following year’s “What Are We Doin’ in Love,” a duet with Kenny Rogers.

By that time, Goodrum and his wife had already decided to leave Nashville, settling in Westport, Connecticut. That’s where he was when Steve Perry called in 1984, asking Randy if he’d want to try some songwriting collaborations. Goodrum flew out to Los Angeles, where he ended up co-writing neatly all of the songs on Perry’s debut solo album, Street Talk. Among their co-writes, “Oh Sherrie” rose to number 3 on the pop chart, becoming a rock radio classic, while “Foolish Heart” also fared remarkably well, perching at number 18.

Goodrum, by that time, had become one of the hottest properties in the music world. He continued to branch out stylistically, working on projects with the jazz/R&B legend George Benson, as well as such top names as Patti Austin, El DeBarge and, on the pop/rock side, Michael Bolton, Chicago (“If She Would Have Been Faithful,” a number 17 hit) and Toto, who took Goodrum’s “I’ll Be Over You” to number 11. Goodrum also began working separately with Toto founding member Steve Lukather, one of the most remarkable guitarists on the music scene. (Later on, in 2008, Goodrum would co-write the majority of the songs on Lukather’s Ever Changing Times album.)

In 1991, Goodrum’s association with Chet Atkins bore new fruit when the Nashville titan teamed up with the British guitarist Mark Knopfler, recording Randy’s “So Soft, Your Goodbye,” (the 1991 Grammy winner for Best Country Instrumental Performance) adding to Goodrum’s varied and growing list of accomplishments.

But that wasn’t all that Randy had going on: Throughout the ’80s and ’90s, he also began building a reputation for his own recordings, starting with the 1982 album Fool’s Paradise, followed by Solitary Nights (1983), then a trio of albums for the Japanese market, a couple of compilations and a pair of collaborative efforts. Several of Goodrum’s solo releases will be upgraded and re-released in 2020.

Not surprisingly, Randy Goodrum’s remarkable career has earned him recognition by his peers in the music industry. The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) has named him the Country Songwriter of the Year and the Academy of Country Music honored “You Needed Me” with its Song of the Year Award. There’s also been the Grammy nomination and a nod from the National Music Publishers Association. Most prestigious, perhaps, was being inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Goodrum—who has since settled back in Arkansas, close to where it all began for him—has, numerous times, proven that his early instinct toward versatility was the way to go. Regardless of what kind of music he is creating, he’s always put his whole heart and soul into the music. “I’m a method writer,” he says. “I like to write a song in one sitting if possible, because you’ll never feel the same way any two days in a row. I like to capture the wave.”

And even today, with a long list of accomplishments behind him, Goodrum continues to strive as if he is still that struggling young kid looking for his first break. “I always like to keep preparing for success,” he says. “I’m happy that my Red Eye record is out, and I’ve got enough music to do two or three more. Or maybe there’ll be some other opportunity or door that will open as a result. We’ll see!”