"THE HAPPIEST MAN IN THE WORLD" is a tasty gumbo of new bluesy-country songs recorded in the English countryside...The stellar acoustic band, made up of musicians who have known each other for years, features legendary upright bassist Danny Thompson. His exuberant, soulful sound at the heart of these songs makes this album a real treat.
R**T
Music at its best
this album is amazing, of all Eric Bibbs albums this is in a class of its own, if you've never heard EB buy this,you will not be disappointed. i am the happiest man in the world after hearing and buying this.
L**A
Five Stars
Brilliant
D**E
Five Stars
Good album
F**E
Five Stars
I'm very pleased.Excellent!
H**N
love it....
love it....
S**S
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.
T**E
!The happiest man in the World" cant be a Bluesman!!
The problem with Eric is...and don't get me wrong i love his stuff and been a fan since i first seen him play live in 1996 is, you cant really be "The happiest man in the World" and be a bluesman. It's not really about being happy all of the time. He does far too many "Love" songs these days and it becomes very boring quickly. This may sound a bit stupid but i wish he would do less recording and spend more time on the material that he records in stead of knocking albums out one after another.His first 2 albums on Opus3 label "Spirit and the Blues" and "Good Stuff" remain his best work date in my humble opinion.
G**N
Eric with beautifully played backing
Eric seems to have a record out every other week, this one follows on from his last CD with French harp player J.J. Milteau and is again a collaborative effort with both the legendary jazz/folk double bass player Danny Thompson and Finnish band North Country Far (and you don't get much further North than Finland.) The title track gets us off to a great start and sets the tone for the rest of the record, with Eric's wonderful voice and guitar out front, Danny's bass laying the foundation and Olli Haavisto, Janne Haavisto and Petri Hawala from North Country Far supplying the twiddly bits with extra guitars, slide, mandolin, fiddle, percussion etc. In truth the overall sound is very much like Eric's other records but on songs like the dust bowl ballad "Tossin' and Turnin'" the band sound really works, with beautifully played atmospheric dobro, fiddle and percussion.As usual I find that Eric's own songs walk a fine line between romantic beauty and mawkish sentimentality, some songs are fine others just slip over the line but the playing from Danny and the NCF boys provides perfect support and is beautifully judged, and also as usual I'm a sucker for Eric's voice which has such a lovely tone. On my first few listens I didn't think that there were any really outstanding songs here, Eric reworks "Tell Ol' Bill" again and there is also a surprising version of the Kinks' "You Really Got Me" - and I can't decide if it works or not, its certainly different.Eric could sing the telephone book and make it sound good but at this early stage I don't think that this is one of his better releases, although I was really impressed with the backing and everything does sound really good and very tasteful. Three and a half stars.
