Randy Newman: Good Old Boys (Reprise MS 2193)

RANDY NEWMAN has never been one to woo the predictable or cling to the musical status quo for inspiration. In his sleep-soaked tousled tenor he has delivered his own deadpan visions without relying on the fashionable or shocking to make his points. While he's done a number of tunes about social situations in America, he has none of the eerie prophecy of early Dylan or the outrageous personal absurdity of Loudon Wainwright, yet he works out of a similar impetus, to delineate and place himself in the flux of experience.