Howard was born in Los Angeles. He is from a musical family; his grandmother was a violinist. His father was Jewish but he did not want his children to know he was, so he changed his last name from Horowitz to Howard. Howard began studying music as a child, taking classical piano lessons at the age of four. He went on to attend the
Thacher School in
Ojai, California and the
Music Academy of the West in
Montecito, California with Reginald Stewart and Leon Fleischer. After Howard left college, he joined a short-lived rock band called
Mama Lion. The band was led by
Neil Merryweather (bass, backing vocals) and featured lead singer
Lynn Carey, Coffi Hall on drums, and Rick Gaxiola on guitar. Mama Lion recorded two full-length albums. Members of Mama Lion also formed the band Heavy Cruiser with Merryweather now on lead vocals, recording two albums whose genre was closer to hard rock but also displayed psychedelic and progressive influences. He then worked for a couple of years as a session musician with artists including
Diana Ross,
Ringo Starr, and
Harry Nilsson. In the early 70s, he described himself as being "dirt poor", until his big break in 1975 when his manager got him an audition with
Elton John. He joined John's band and toured with them as keyboardist during the late 70s and early 80s. He was part of the band that played
Central Park,
New York, on September 13, 1980. Howard also arranged strings for several of John's songs during this period including the hits "
Don't Go Breaking My Heart" and "
Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word", along with "Tonight" (featuring the London Symphony Orchestra). He played additional keyboards and synthesizers on studio albums including
Rock of the Westies (1975),
Blue Moves (1976),
21 at 33 (1980), and
The Fox (1981). In 1982, Howard was featured on
Toto IV as the strings conductor and orchestrator for "I Won't Hold You Back", "Afraid of Love", and "Lovers in the Night". In 1984 the Sheffield Lab direct-to-disc album
James Newton Howard and Friends, was released, which featured
Toto's
David Paich (keyboards),
Steve Porcaro (keyboards),
Jeff Porcaro (drums), and
Joe Porcaro (percussion). Howard's track "L'daddy" was used as benchmark testing in International Auto Sound Challenge Association (IASCA)
SPL testing. In 1983, Howard was co-producer, musician (keyboards), and orchestrator of
Riccardo Cocciante's album
Sincerità. He also created five arrangements for the album "Aznavour '83" by
Charles Aznavour, which was recorded in California. In 1984, Howard composed his first piece of score for a film, receiving a co-writing credit with David Paich for the cue "Trip to Arrakis" in Toto's music for the
David Lynch film
Dune. After briefly touring with
Crosby, Stills, and Nash, he took an opportunity brought to him by his manager to write a score for a film. This career move would lead to his becoming a successful film music composer. During this early foray into film music, Howard returned for a brief collaboration with Elton John on his Tour De Force of Australia in the fall of 1986. He conducted both his own and
Paul Buckmaster's arrangements during the second half of the set, which focused on orchestrated performances of selected songs from the Elton John catalog. == 1990s–2000s ==