Despite the fact that this recording has the indelible reputation of being the worst selling album in the Warner Brothers catalog, it stands up with any of its classic contemporary recordings, and here's why.  Thompson had just departed the greatest folk rock band of all time, Fairport Convention, just one year after Sandy Denny and Ashley Hutchings.  The band just could not contain his enormous talented knack for writing original material based on traditional Scottish themes.  Take Liege and Lief's Crazy Man Michael (1969), for instance.  There's a story that continues all the way to Rumor and Sigh's 1952 Vincent Black Lightning (1991).  Henry kicks off like gangbusters with Roll Over Vaughn Williams and one never knows if it nods to Williams or Chuck Berry or both!  The listener is bombared with electric notes at a mile a minute--I wouldn't doubt he used every note on that strat of his.  Shakey Nancy brings up some of the best Celtic music in the genre, and features Sandy Denny playing some pretty piano.  The Angels Took My Racehorse Away is a hilarious take on the death of a thoroughbred with an unlikely pairing of country rock-a-billy guitar licks with John Kirkpatric's accordian working a cajun twist.  Backing vocals ably supplied by Sandy and Linda, this is one of the album's standout tracks.  The Old Changing Way is a timely piece about sharing in time of need, while The Poor Ditching Boy is a lament on an untrue lover.  Vocals are twisted with rage and sadness in his ballads and deadpanned in the lighter tracks such as Twisted.  Humor abounds here with Cold Feet and Nobody's Wedding with the traditional Maire's Wedding jig tagged on.  Shady characters such as Alice the Butcher and the wild boy chopping up the floor add all the intrigue of a Hitchcock mystery.  A woman's shape is likened to the topography of a country side village in Wheely Down.  Although this is Richard's first album proper, he handles this song cycle like a seasoned pro.  Here is an album that, to the uninitiated, is strange at first hearing, but the returning listener is rewarded with a beautiful odessey.  (Richard is a veteran of over 40 albums from 1968 to present under his own name, Fairport and two under French, Frith, Kaiser & Thompson.  He has contributed on probably hundreds of albums in addition.  One of the most under-appreciated guitar players, he has been compared to everyone from Eric Clapton to Django Reinhardt.  He comes highly recommended by the likes of Bonnie Raitt and Elvis Costello.)