Richard Thompson fans can get religious about the British songwriter and guitarist, and nothing illustrates this better than Nigel Schofield’s 170-page book accompanying this 5-CD box set. Almost any bit of esoteric Thompson lore is enough to sidetrack him on his trek through Thompson’s career, making it all more complex than it really is. Although Schofield is fascinated by every factoid and curious theory, the true believer in him can’t imagine that there’s anyone out there who doesn’t know the basics, which makes the book largely useless to newcomers to Thompson.

 

Then again, RT probably isn’t the place to start, anyway. A box rarely is. This might seem like it could be because almost all of Thompson’s great songs are here, though none in their original, popular versions. With over 30 years of bouncing between labels and bands, getting his work with Fairport Convention, Richard and Linda Thompson and on his own in one box would require serious negotiations. Instead, he presents a retrospective of his career in live and unreleased versions of his songs, the earliest dating back to 1971. Many versions are acoustic, though disc three is dominated by extended takes that show off the greatest electric guitarist untouched by the blues.

 

Perhaps because so much here is acoustic, RT makes Thompson’s career sound more coherent than previous recorded evidence might lead you to believe. Different producers and periods resulted in albums that sounded new wave or ultra-contemporary while other tracks sounded centuries old. Here, it all seems of a piece, and it presents a portrait of an emotionally healthier man than some albums suggest. The misogyny that was particularly present in the mid-’80s here is leavened as the songs are separated and mixed with other, less hostile, material.

 

That range and the amount of previously unheard material including a disc of covers make RT the rarest of animals: a satisfying box set. The acoustic presentations make it easy to hear his melodic and lyrical gifts, and the breadth of material suggests just how many great songs Richard Thompson has.