"Good Old Boys" is the fourth studio album by American musician Randy Newman, released on September 10, 1974, on Reprise Records, catalogue number 2193. This album marked Newman’s first significant commercial success, reaching number 36 on the Billboard 200 and number 58 in Canada. The premiere live performance of the album occurred on October 5, 1974, at Symphony Hall in Atlanta, Georgia, with Ry Cooder as a guest and Newman conducting the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.
Good Old Boys was initially conceived as a concept album centered around a character named Johnny Cutler, representing an everyman from the Deep South. Randy Newman recorded a demo of these songs on February 1, 1973, which was later released as a bonus disc for the 2002 reissue, titled Johnny Cutler's Birthday.
The core idea of this concept persisted into the final album, though it evolved from focusing on a single character to addressing broader viewpoints of the Deep South’s inhabitants. Newman continued his exploration of controversial topics, including slavery and racism, most notably on the opening track "Rednecks". This song serves as a satire of both institutional racism in the South and the hypocrisy of the northern states.
The album also incorporates historical references, such as the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 in "Louisiana 1927". It includes a song about Louisiana politician Huey "The Kingfish" Long, titled "Kingfish", and features a performance of Long’s own song, "Every Man a King", with members of the Eagles.
As with his earlier albums, Newman had some songs that were previously recorded by other artists. For example, "Guilty" was first recorded by Bonnie Raitt on her 1973 album Takin' My Time.
A detailed analysis of Good Old Boys, including insights into the Dick Cavett Show episode that inspired "Rednecks", is provided in Steven Hart's essay "He May Be a Fool But He's Our Fool: Lester Maddox, Randy Newman, and the American Culture Wars," found 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, offering an in-depth critical study of the album’s origins, development, and reception. Greil Marcus, in the Sixth Edition of his classic Mystery Train, praised Kastin's book as an insightful examination of the work’s historical, musical, and socio-economic contexts.
