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Like a musical Old Faithful, Richard Thompson dependably spews an album’s worth of inspired material at regular intervals. He’s been doing this since 1972’s Henry the Human Fly (Island ILPS 9197), which is so deserving of a high quality all-analog reissue.

Frank Zappa acknowledges the influence of Edgar Varése, Igor Stravinsky and other modern classical composers in much of his music but did he ever mention Charles Mingus? Not that I can recall having read (save for the oblique reference in the title of the composition “Eric Dolphy Memorial Barbecue”), but it’s impossible to not draw the connection when the sextet slinks its way into the staccato twists and turns of the raucous, mocking, angry and mostly exasperated and distraught half hour version of “Fables of Faubus,” found on this epic but until recently unknown March 18th, 1964 Cornell University concert.

This is a weird, squooshy, watery record. The music is soft and squooshy, the lyrics are soft and squooshy. Songwriter Art Halperin’s voice is particularly squooshy, the background musicians play softly and squooshily, and even the veteran recording and mastering engineer Barry Diament has captured it squooshily in real stereo in a pleasingly reverberant church using a pair of carefully placed microphones.

In retrospect it’s easy to understand why these superstars would want to write and perform this codger-esque novelty stuff under assumed names. They must have figured that while writing and singing this lighthearted fare inspired by the music of their formative years was fun, they were hardly washed up artists and had more greatness within waiting to pour forth.