More focused than Newman's previous album, the brilliant Sail Away, and way more biting, it's an incredibly well crafted screed/love song to the south of Newman's youth. Great individual songs, cutting wit and music that pleads for a stage play or film to be built around it. There was a time when records of this quality and intellegence were lauded as great art and at the same time popular sellers.

I think it's his best album, and one of the very best albums of the mid 70's. An album about The South that really reminds you of Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor. Newman had the very rare gift of being extremely sarcastic to the point of misanthropy while being incredibly humanistic and empathetic: sometimes on the same song. Ray Davies, who makes very different music and is almost 180 degrees from Nerwman in most ways, is similar to Newman in that way, but very few others are. When Newman was on the ball, there were very few lyricists of his time who could touch or surpass him. Nearly every track on this record is a classic." Louisiana 1927,"" Marie," and " Guilty" alone are worth the price of the album."