Good Old Boys by Randy Newman

Good Old Boys, Randy Newman's fourth studio album, came out on Reprise on September 10, 1974, and it finally turned the writer other acts had been having hits with into a man who sold records under his own name: it was his first real commercial success. Russ Titelman produced it, and the setting is Newman's warm, rolling Americana, piano out front and a little honky-tonk in the joints, with that lazy, Southern-accented drawl of his delivering lines that cut deeper the longer you sit with them. His songs tend to be mordant and satirical, often sung by a narrator you'd be wise not to trust, and that knife is sharp here.

"Louisiana 1927" is the aching one. The album got a grand send-off, too: its live premiere came on October 5, 1974, at Symphony Hall in Atlanta, with Ry Cooder along as a guest and Newman himself conducting the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.