Randy Newman helped make the 10th anniversary Austin City Limits Music Festival in Austin's Zilker Park a success this past weekend. He closed out the Vista Equity stage on Sunday night just before Arcade Fire brought the whole festival to a close. Newman's solo piano and vocal set included songs from throughout his career, as does his latest Nonesuch release, Songbook Vol. 2, which takes a fresh look at 16 of his celebrated songs.

"We still don't know how a 67-year-old turned in our favorite set of this past weekend's Austin City Limits Festival," raves Houston Press reviewer Craig Hlavaty, "but heck if Randy Newman didn't leave us on a musical high ... Only My Morning Jacket Saturday night came close for our own personal satisfaction, which has to be saying something about Newman's enduring, compartmentalized appeal. Also, we don't mind spending an hour with the characters that he summons in his songs."

Newman, his piano, and his "treasure trove of music" were all it took to make it so. "Newman solo onstage with just his compositions, a smile, and an adoring crowd was one of the most magical things we would see this weekend," says Hlavaty. "Above the lights, the screams, and half-naked people running around the other stages, it was the simple design of a man and piano that thrilled us the most."

Read the complete review at houstonpress.com.

The Onion's A.V. Club, which, in its ACL Music Festival recap, separates the festival performances into Yes, No, and Maybe categories, puts Newman's set solidly in the Yes section. Reviewer Sean O'Neal reports that, while Newman's set catered to fans both new and "adoring" alike, "the diehards appreciated deeper cuts like the haunting 'In Germany Before The War' and 'Louisiana 1927,' the latter of which still holds a redemptive emotional power over its audience even after years of becoming inured to Hurricane Katrina heartbreak." It was such performances, says O'Neal, when Newman's appearance at the festival "truly paid off." Read the A.V. Club's recap at avclub.com.

Newman stayed on in Austin to perform before a live studio studio audience at the new ACL Live at The Moody Theater on Monday; the set will be broadcast on PBS's Austin City Limits new season, with Newman scheduled to play the episode's full hour on Saturday, November 12. For more information and local listings, go to austincitylimits.org.

To pick up a copy of the Randy Newman Songbook Vol. 2, head to the Nonesuch Store, where orders include high-quality, 320 kbps MP3s of the album at checkout.