Red Pajamas
1977
Say It In Private
About This Album
Steve Goodman reached the charts with his first two albums for Asylum Records, Jessie's Jig & Other Favorites (1975) and Words We Can Dance To (1976), and that may have convinced the label to spend more money on his next LP (money intended to be recoupable against royalties should the album take off, of course), because the sessions for Say It in Private appear to have been quite elaborate. For the first time since his second album, Somebody Else's Troubles (1973), Goodman had a real producer (i.e., somebody who produced records for a living), Joel Dorn, and among the six dozen singers and players who contributed to the sessions were plenty of arrangers and string players. Nevertheless, Say It in Private ended up being a fairly typical Steve Goodman album. In a sense, the cover art told the story. It featured a painting by Howard Carriker that replicated Jacques Louis David's famous 1793 portrait Death of Marat, in which French revolutionary and invalid Jean-Paul Marat was shown lying in his medicinal bath after having been assassinated. In Carriker's version, the body belonged to Goodman, who was alive and smiling. So, here was an expensive-looking illustration that was making a macabre joke, and the album was more of the same, really.
Track List (try tracks 2,3,4,6 and 10)

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10.