Good Old Boys (Randy Newman album)

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1974 studio album by Randy Newman

Good Old Boys

Studio album by

Randy Newman

Released| September 10, 1974
Recorded| 1972-74
Studio| Warner Bros. Studios, North Hollywood, California
Genre| Roots rock, country rock
Length| 33:28
Label| Reprise
Producer| Lenny Waronker, Russ Titelman
Randy Newman chronology
| Sail Away
(1972)  | Good Old Boys
(1974)  | Little Criminals
(1977)

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|

Good Old Boys is the fourth studio album by American musician Randy Newman, released on September 10, 1974 on Reprise Records, catalogue number 2193. It was Newman's first album to obtain major commercial success, peaking at number 36 on the Billboard 200 and number 58 in Canada.[1] The premiere live performance of the album took place on October 5, 1974, at the Symphony Hall in Atlanta, Georgia, with guest Ry Cooder and Newman conducting the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.

## Genesis[edit]

Good Old Boys was initially envisioned as a concept album about a character named Johnny Cutler, an everyman of the Deep South. Newman made a demo of these songs on February 1, 1973: they were released as the bonus disc for the 2002 reissue, titled Johnny Cutler's Birthday.

The kernel of this concept survived into the released album, although as Newman's take on viewpoints from the inhabitants of the Deep South in general, rather than from a single individual character. As on his previous release, Newman addressed generally taboo topics such as slavery and racism, most stringently on the opening song "Rednecks", a simultaneous satire on institutional racism in the Deep South and the hypocrisy of the northern states in response.

Newman also incorporates actual historical events into the album, remarking upon the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 on "Louisiana 1927". Preceding an original song ("Kingfish") recounting achievements and slogans of Louisiana politician Huey "The Kingfish" Long, Newman performs with members of the Eagles on a song written by Long himself, "Every Man a King".

As with all of Newman's early albums, some material Newman wrote had been previously recorded by other artists. In this case, "Guilty" had been initially recorded and released by Bonnie Raitt on her 1973 album Takin' My Time.

A lengthy analysis of Good Old Boys, including a detailed description of the Dick Cavett Show broadcast that inspired "Rednecks", is included in Steven Hart's essay "He May Be a Fool But He's Our Fool: Lester Maddox, Randy Newman, and the American Culture Wars", included in the collection Let the Devil Speak: Articles, Essays, and Incitements.

In 2014, Turntable Publishing released the ebook Song of the South: Randy Newman's Good Old Boys, by David Kastin, a full-length critical study of the album's sources, evolution, and reception. In the Sixth Edition of his classic Mystery Train, Greil Marcus cited Kastin's book as an "effectively-illustrated...excavation of the entire severed corpus of the work and a deep dive into the history—musical, social economic, sectional, and water-born—Newman both drew from and recast."

## Singles[edit]

On the same day as the album, the track "Guilty" was released as Reprise single 1324, with "Naked Man" on the B-side, and on January 29, 1975, the track "Louisiana 1927" was released as Reprise single 1387, with "Marie" on the flip. Neither single appeared on the Billboard Hot 100.

## Reception[edit]

Professional ratingsReview scores

Source| Rating
AllMusic| [2]
Christgau's Record Guide| A[4]
Pitchfork| 9.3/10[3]
Rolling Stone| [5]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music| [6]
Tom Hull| A−[7]

Robert Christgau gave the album an A rating upon release, and in retrospective reviews both the 1992 edition of the Rolling Stone Album Guide and AllMusic gave it a five-star rating. In 2012, the album was ranked number 394 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.[8] In 2000 it was voted number 902 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums.[9] It spent two weeks in the top 40 of the Billboard 200 in late 1974, with an overall 21-week tenure. It also earned a gold record in the Netherlands.

On May 21, 2002, an expanded edition of the album was issued by Rhino Records on compact disc, including a bonus track demo of "Marie" and a second disc containing the February, 1973 demos entitled Johnny Cutler's Birthday. Included in these demo recordings are Newman's verbal descriptions of sound effects and other characters, the songs as a whole describing a narrative in the vein of integrated musicals dating from the 1940s. "Doctor, Doctor" is an early version of "Back on My Feet Again". The song "Marie" was used in the family film Paulie in 1998.

All tracks were written and arranged by Randy Newman (with the exception of "Every Man a King"); strings arranged by Nick DeCaro on "Marie" and "Rollin'"; Moog and ARP synthesizers programmed by Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff.

## Track listing[edit]

All tracks are written by Randy Newman except where noted

Side oneNo.| Title| Length

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1.| "Rednecks"| 3:07
2.| "Birmingham"| 2:45
3.| "Marie"| 3:07
4.| "Mr. President (Have Pity on the Working Man)"| 2:45
5.| "Guilty"| 2:30

Side twoNo.| Title| Writer(s)| Length

|
|
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6.| "Louisiana 1927"|  | 2:54
7.| "Every Man a King"| Huey Long, Castro Carazo| 1:02
8.| "Kingfish"|  | 2:42
9.| "Naked Man"|  | 3:06
10.| "A Wedding in Cherokee County"|  | 3:07
11.| "Back on My Feet Again"|  | 3:30
12.| "Rollin'"|  | 2:53

### 2002 Reissue[edit]

Disc one: Good Old Boys

1. "Rednecks"
2. "Birmingham"
3. "Marie"
4. "Mr. President (Have Pity on the Working Man)"
5. "Guilty"
6. "Louisiana 1927"
7. "Every Man a King"
8. "Kingfish"
9. "Naked Man"
10. "A Wedding in Cherokee County"
11. "Back on My Feet Again"
12. "Rollin'"
13. "Marie" (demo, bonus track)

Disc two: Johnny Cutler's Birthday

1. "Rednecks"
2. "If We Didn't Have Jesus"
3. "Birmingham"
4. "The Joke"
5. "Louisiana"
6. "My Daddy Knew Dixie Howell"
7. "Shining"
8. "Marie"
9. "Good Morning"
10. "Birmingham Redux"
11. "Doctor, Doctor"
12. "Albanian Anthem"
13. "Rolling"

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## Personnel[edit]

* Randy Newman – arranger, conductor, piano, Fender Rhodes, ARP, synthesizer, vocals
* Ry Cooder – guitar on "Back on My Feet Again"
* John Platania – electric guitar
* Ron Elliott, Dennis Budimir – acoustic guitar
* Al Perkins – pedal steel guitar
* Russ Titelman, Willie Weeks, Red Callender – bass guitar
* Jim Keltner, Andy Newmark – drums
* Bobbye Hall – percussion
* Milt Holland – drums, percussion
* Glenn Frey – backing vocals
* Don Henley – backing vocals
* Bernie Leadon – backing vocals
* Nick DeCaro - string arrangements, conductor on "Marie" and "Rollin'"
* Malcolm Cecil, Robert Margouleff \- ARP, synthesizer, programming

Technical

* Judy Maizel, Trudy Portch - production coordination
* Lee Herschberg - engineer, mixing
* Donn Landee - additional engineer, mixing
* Mike Salisbury - cover design, photography
* Shepard Sherbell - liner photography

## References[edit]

1. ^ "RPM Top 100 Albums - December 7, 1974" (PDF).
2. ^ Mark Deming. "Good Old Boys - Randy Newman | Songs, Reviews, Credits". AllMusic. Retrieved 2016-08-29.
3. ^ Cook-Wilson, Winston (October 16, 2016). "Randy Newman: Good Old Boys". Pitchfork. Retrieved October 16, 2016.
4. ^ Christgau, Robert (1981). "Consumer Guide '70s: N". Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies. Ticknor & Fields. ISBN 089919026X. Retrieved March 8, 2019 - via robertchristgau.com.
5. ^ Davis, Stephen (1997-01-21). "Good Old Boys". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2016-08-29.
6. ^ Larkin, Colin (2007). Encyclopedia of Popular Music (4th ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195313734.
7. ^ Hull, Tom (April 1975). "The Rekord Report: Second Card". Overdose. Retrieved June 26, 2020 - via tomhull.com.
8. ^ "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Rolling Stone. 31 May 2012. Retrieved 6 August 2019.
9. ^ Colin Larkin (2000). All Time Top 1000 Albums (3rd ed.). Virgin Books. p. 276\. ISBN 0-7535-0493-6.

* v
* t
* e

Randy Newman

Studio albums|

* Randy Newman
* 12 Songs
* Sail Away
* Good Old Boys
* Little Criminals
* Born Again
* Trouble in Paradise
* Land of Dreams
* Bad Love
* Harps and Angels
* Dark Matter

Live albums|

* Randy Newman Live

Compilations|

* Lonely at the Top: The Best of Randy Newman
* Guilty: 30 Years of Randy Newman
* The Best of Randy Newman
* The Randy Newman Songbook Vol. 1
* The Randy Newman Songbook Vol. 2

Musicals|

* Randy Newman's Faust

Soundtracks|

* Avalon
* Toy Story
* James and the Giant Peach
* A Bug's Life
* Toy Story 2
* Meet the Parents
* Monsters, Inc.
* Cars
* The Princess and the Frog
* Toy Story 3
* Cars 3
* Toy Story 4
* Marriage Story

Songs|

* "Mama Told Me Not to Come"
* "I Think It's Going to Rain Today"
* "Sail Away"
* "He Gives Us All His Love"
* "Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear"
* "Political Science"
* "You Can Leave Your Hat On"
* "Louisiana 1927"
* "Rednecks"
* "Short People"
* "I Love L.A."
* "You've Got a Friend in Me"
* "When She Loved Me"
* "If I Didn't Have You"
* "It's a Jungle Out There"
* "Our Town"
* "When We're Human"
* "Friends on the Other Side"
* "Down in New Orleans"
* "Almost There"
* "We Belong Together"
* "The Ballad of the Lonesome Cowboy"

Related|

* Discography
* Accolades
* Nilsson Sings Newman
* Alfred Newman
* David Newman
* Emil Newman
* Joey Newman
* Lionel Newman
* Thomas Newman

Authority control databases |

* MusicBrainz release group

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