Randy Edelman ‎– The Laughter And The Tears - 1972 Rock (vinyl)

Edelman was born in Paterson, New Jersey, to a Jewish family.^[1][2] He was raised in Teaneck, New Jersey, the son of a first-grade teacher and an accountant.^[3] He attended the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music before heading to New York where he played piano in Broadway pit orchestras. He produced several solo albums of songs (some of which were later recorded by The Carpenters ("I Can't Make Music", "Piano Picker" and "You"), Barry Manilow ("Weekend in New England"), "If Love Is Real" fromOlivia Newton-John's Making a Good Thing Better, Dionne Warwick, The Laughter and the Tears, Blood Sweat and Tears, Blue Street, and many others before moving to Los Angeles. It was there where Edelman started to work in television and film scoring while producing his solo albums which found cult following in the UK, Europe, and Japan.

Musical scores[edit]

One of his first film scores was for the 1973 movie Executive Action, which put forward a conspiracy theory concerning the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy in 1963. In the mid-1980s, Edelman wrote the theme to, and scored many episodes ofMacGyver, a popular television series starring Richard Dean Anderson.

During the 1980s and early 1990s, he also collaborated with Ivan Reitman, producing scores for several of his comedies, including Ghostbusters II, Twins and Kindergarten Cop. He also contributed to Beethoven, The Last of the Mohicans, The Mask,Daylight, Anaconda, xXx, Gettysburg, My Cousin Vinny, While You Were Sleeping, Dragonheart, Shanghai Noon, Six Days Seven Nights, The Indian in the Cupboard, Billy Madison, Angels in the Outfield, and EDtv to name just a few.

Edelman was honored with the Richard Kirk Award at the 2003 BMI Film and TV Awards. The award is given annually to a composer who has made significant contributions to film and television music. In 2004 he received an honorary doctorate in fine arts from the University of Cincinnati. He was given the degree along with three other honorees distinguished in various other fields, including Coretta Scott King.^[4]

He produced the scores for the 2008 film The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. This score was recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London where in 2010 Randy also recorded and composed the Irish flavored music score for Amy Adams film Leap Year.He was awarded the Goldspirit Award (named in honor of Jerry Goldsmith) for best comedy score of 2011 for the Leap Yearsoundtrack CD on Varese Sarabande.