What do we have here, then? More awful, reductive takes about one of history’s greatest songwriters, is it? Well, colour me shocked! No matter, my 5 mighty stars will go 0.01% of the way to redressing the balance. Where Sail Away was a more disparate collection of songs showcasing Newman’s stylistic breadth, Good Old Boys is a much more cohesive album, musically and thematically. But it still shows him at his most bitingly satirical (Rednecks), his most beautifully poignant (Louisiana 1927, Marie), and his most idiosyncratically, irreverently humourous (A Wedding in Cherokee County).