Monday, 2 May 2016

Eric Bibb, North Country Far, Danny Thompson - The Happiest Man In The World


Rating: 3/5

Review:
Disappointing material



I was really looking forward to this album.  Eric Bibb is an excellent singer and musician, and the great Danny Thompson is one of my musical heroes so I was expecting the collaboration between them to be something really special.  Sadly, it isn't really.  The playing and singing is excellent, but I have to say that the material taken together isn't great.

The sound throughout this album is lovely.  Eric's singing is, as always, beautifully soulful and evocative and the backing musicians including Thompson are very fine, so there's an atmospheric, classy feel to the whole thing.  For the first track or two I thought this might be as good as I'd hoped, but it declined into a nice but undistinguished sameyness pretty quickly.  The songs are almost all about Good Lovin' Gone Good and My Baby Done Stayed With Me, which actually makes a pleasant change – for a while.  The trouble is, it becomes a bit saccharine in feel after a short while and really needs something with a bit more edge to give it some contrast and spice.  To be honest, I just keep getting a bit bored and drifting off when I listen to much of this at once.

I'm sorry to be critical of artists whom I like and respect greatly, but that's my honest view.  There's nothing wrong with the album as such and the musicianship is very good, but as a listenable programme it doesn't really work for me.

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