Rockapaedia Obituaries
Randy Vanwarmer
Randy Vanwarmer died aged forty-e
ight on 12th January 2004 in Seattle, U.S.A. He had been suffering from leukemia for the previous year.
In line with one of his greatest loves, some of Randy Vanwarmer's cremated remains were sent into space in 2007.
Randy Vanwarmer was born Randall Van Wormer, in Indian Hills, Colorado,U.S.A.; the son of Roger and Betsy Van Wormer. At age fifteen, three years after the death of his father in an automobile accident, Randy moved with his mother to Cornwall, England. His experiences there inspired his composition: "Just When I Needed You Most".
Randy's album, Terraform had a darker feel and sold moderately in Japan and Australia. Randy Vanwarmer would later publicly rue his decision to turn away from dreamy ballads. He made two more albums at Bearsville: Beat of Love and The Things That You Dream. Beat of Love included the single "Suzi Found a Weapon", a tribute to a Bearsville public relations rep whom Randy Vanwarmer would later woo and marry, and which went to number 1 in Alaska and gained a certain amount of post mortem acclaim .
According to Release, in the mid 1980s Suzi Randy Vanwarmer mailed a song called "I Guess It Never Hurts to Hurt Sometimes" from Beat of Love to a friend at MCA, who sent it to Ron Chancey, the producer of the Oak Ridge Boys who put it on their next album. Charley Pride recorded a song of Randy Vanwarmer's, as did Michael Johnson. Moving to Nashville, Randy Vanwarmer saw a recording of his song, "I'm in a Hurry (And Don't Know Why)", also hit number 1 on the country chart by Alabama.
Randy Vanwarmer continued to write music for others and for his own recordings, which continued to be ar
tistically successful but commercially unsuccessful. He also helped other younger artists with their own songwriting efforts.
His final album was a tribute to Stephen Foster, released posthumously only in Japan. According to the CD's liner notes, Randy Vanwarmer played all the instruments.