Happy the Man
Crafty Hands

LA RECENSIONE

Americans from Washington took their name directly from a 1971 acoustic Genesis song; a track that was never actually included in any of their classic albums, but can be found in certain compilations of Banks and company. Just so, in any case... since that song is one of their least significant works.

Those in the know say that this band is still around after many lineup changes and a few albums here and there. They started by releasing a couple of records in the second half of the seventies, of which this is the second: the year was 1978.

Curiously, their sound doesn't really resemble that of Gabriel and company. It’s more rock, more sunny... if anything, it leans toward Yes, with possible references to Camel, especially when a flute — sometimes electronic and sometimes not — takes the lead in the highly skilled hands of keyboardist Kit Watkins.

But the surprising thing is that... they almost never sing! It's funny, because the leader and guitarist Stanley Withaker can sing. But he steps up to the microphone only once in a blue moon. More precisely, on track number five: "Wind Up Doll Day Wind" (what a title! The windup doll is the retro-wind doll, like those in Dario Argento's films).

They are American, so they display a minimum of pomposity, but only a little: odd time signatures galore, very much in the Kansas/Echolyn vein, neat arrangements and plenty of instrumental skill, but without excessive technical showing-off. Electric guitar and keyboards constantly take turns at center stage, the rhythm section never misses a beat, and there are frequent gentle, melodic passages that make Happy the Man’s music entirely anxiety-free.

This is an album for musicians, for prog enthusiasts, for lovers of those kinds of music that take several listens to fully absorb, and for fans of mini-suites of five, six, seven minutes, with at least three or four shifts in atmosphere.

Of course, this is music with no hope for widespread success, due to the nonexistence of vocal pathos. But everything is... exquisite; you really need to enter into symbiosis with it, literally put the CD in your car and leave it there for twenty days. At that point, you really enjoy it — it’s an... intellectual ecstasy.

Also because it's superbly recorded! The producer, after all, is Ken Scott: Supertramp, Bowie, Tubes, Mahavishnu, and a thousand others have passed through his resume since the early seventies, after he did valuable “apprenticeship” in his youth at Abbey Road, bringing tea and cigarettes to the Beatles, hooking up their amps, and placing microphones where George Martin asked.