Little Criminals is the fifth studio album by American singer-songwriter Randy Newman. Like most of Newman's work, the album eschews traditional pop-music themes in favor of musical story-telling, often featuring quirky characters and cynical views. The first song on the album – "Short People" – became a hit single in its own right. The album itself peaked at #9 on the US Billboard 200 chart, Newman's highest-charting album to date. Some of the instrumental work and backing vocals on the album are performed by members of the Eagles. In particular, Glenn Frey played guitar on two tracks, Joe Walsh played guitar on three tracks, and Don Henley and Tim Schmit sang background vocals on one track each. Frey and JD Souther, who had earlier been the duo Longbranch Pennywhistle, sang background vocals on three tracks. Newman wrote, conducted and played keyboards on all tracks. Synthesizers were programmed by Michael Boddicker. In September 1977 the British music magazine NME published the following interview with Newman talking sardonically about his then new release: "There's one song about a child murderer," Newman deadpans. "That's fairly optimistic. Maybe. From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_...) under Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...)