The Lonely Goatherd Blog And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats - Matthew 25:32
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Al Barger and MoreThings - getting people's goats since 1998.
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All original content on MoreThings.com copyright 2008 Albert Barger or the respective authors
February 22, 2003
Good Old Boys, Randy Newman's masterpiece In 2002 Rhino Records put out a newly re-mastered version of Randy Newman's 1974 Good Old Boys album. This now two disc package just got listed the Blogcritics site to which I am a contributing writer as one of the best re-issues of the year.
Newman made Good Old Boys as something of a mixed-feelings Valentine to the south. "Rednecks" begins the album on just that mixed note. He wrote a good stompin' barroom sing-along song, quite convincing for a well-bred Jew from a family of film composers. Even though they might theoretically sympathize with the lyrical sentiment, however, it seems unlikely that a bunch of rednecks in a bar would sing along to
We talk real funny down here
We drink too much and we laugh too loud
We're too dumb to make it in no Northern town
And we're keepin' the niggers down
Then it turns into in fact something of a defense of the southerners against liberal northern racial hypocrisy, with a bridge throwing back the northern ghettos where the black man is "free to be kept in a cage."
He manages to get at southern pride, heritage and dysfunction in all kinds of more obvious and more subtle ways, without much in the way of obvious southern musical styles. "Rednecks" might be considered country music. The bonus disc has a nice discarded gospel song from the original sessions, "If We Didn't Have Jesus." Other than that, the most obvious model of southern music seems to be Stephen Foster, especially on the sentimental "Birmingham" - which still manages to have a slight undertone of menace ["Get 'em Dan"].
Struggling against harsh fate, "Louisiana" makes beautiful use of slow rising waves of strings describing the rising waters of a terrible flood from 1927. He never wrote a more beautiful song, and none with a greater sense of helpless dread. This track was used very effectively at the close of the outstanding and underrated Paul Newman movie Blaze, about the brother of the legendary Huey Long.
Newman goes into Long's demagogic populism with a bragging song written in his voice, "Kingfish" - as well as a cover of Long's chirpy little commie campaign song "Every Man a King." The vulnerability of the crackers that makes them open to the foolishness of a Huey Long comes out in the humiliated begging of "Mr. President (Have Pity on the Working Man)".
This release comes as a two CD set. The first disc consists of the original album. The second CD has its own title, "Johnny Cutler's Birthday". It consists of the demo sessions that show how the album started out even more heavily conceptualized, with his narration explaining the concept and narrating the story of a cracker's birthday party. The piano demos of the eventual Good Old Boys trade the understated grandeur of the final orchestral arrangements for the intimacy of his solo performances. The songs work either way, but this might give you better appreciation of the power of the final arrangements.
On top of which, this includes a half dozen songs that he didn't use in the 1974 release at all. The best songs made the original album, but you've got some really good songs that are still not good enough to make it onto Good Old Boys.
Song for song, this is Newman's best and most emotionally nuanced album. It also comes out as the most cohesive album statement, playing together in the contrasts of style yet consistency of effect. You need this album.
[CLICK HERE for a particularly good vintage review of the original album.]
