The Kingfish

I'm reading All The King's Men again this political season. It's always apt to revisit this masterpiece when one needs reacquainting with the dark side of ambition and avarice masked as altruism. I also recently watched a Ken Burns documentary on Huey Long.

So this naturally made me think of some of Randy Newman's early work. Six years ago, in a cramped studio on New York's Lower West Side, I had the privilege of attending two tapings of the now defunct Bravo show "Musicians," hosted by the critic David Wild. (Wild was rumored to be the inspiration for the actual Critic.) Anyway, Randy Newman was one of the guests. (Elvis Costello was the other). What a gloriously garrulous old crank Newman was! I sat right behind him. Salty and hardly sentimental, you'd never guess this Rabelais of a composer wrote all that sweet kiddy movie music.

Good Old Boys is one of his major works. Released in 1974, and mentioning Huey Long figuratively and literally, it features one of Randy's best compositions, and one heard especially over the past few years since Hurricane Katrina.

"Louisiana 1927"



No mention of Good Old Boys would be complete without a tip of the hat to the devastating "Rednecks". Living in Louisiana for a significant amount of time as a child, Newman consequently brought a critically intelligent perspective on yet a proud acknowledgment of what fellow songwriter Patterson Hood calls the duality of "The Southern Thing". (I can't stand ultra-liberal condescension either.) Savagely satirical here, he indicts soft yet corrosive Northern hypocrisy and racism.

"Rednecks"