Daniel Meade - Hip Hip Hooray!! (2025) Hi-Res

21st Century Boogie Woogie and Jumpin’ Jive From the Latin Quarter of Glasgow,UK. The album kick starts with the short and sharp, The World Is On Fire which takes a look at the way politics in all its forms controls our lives; all played out to a fabulously danceable melody for 1 minute and 11 seconds!

Next out of the bag is something of an ode to Professor Longhair and/or Dr John as Meade regales us with a fast and furious Got a New Piano that has one of the catchiest choruses on the album.

Then there’s the title track from the EP, Carry Your Own Coffin which is still confusing me; but Hell’s Teeth … songs as catchy and funky as this don’t really need to make sense; do they?
I’ve been a fan of Dan’s music for years now, and he’s always hinted at his love of New Orleans Boogie Woogie, especially when playing gigs; but commercial pressures have probably made him concentrate on his astute songwriting which straddles Folk and Americana at times; but when you hear the passion, lyrically and mostly through the arrangements, that he fills Hate To Say, I Already Know and the sharp edges of the heartbreaker Come Back To Me you can feel he’s playing and singing from the velvet covered walls of his heart.

It’s also fair to say that none of these tracks, while influenced by, never sound like they are from the heady days of when Jumpin’ Jive or Boogie Woogie ruled the backstreets of New Orleans (or possibly even Glasgow’s West End) … everything here sounds fresh and ready to take on the world around us; especially the beautifully morose love song Sinking Stone and Meade’s rip-roaring I’m An Addict which sounds raw and confessional; but with another sing-along chorus aligned to some of the funkiest piano playing I’ve heard in years.

Personally I think there’s a place on radio for several songs here; especially on BBC Radio 6 shows by Craig Charles, Cerys Matthews or the legendary Huey Morgan, who aren’t afraid to take risks on their shows … so fingers crossed I will hear either The Crackpot Jackpot or Like Your Woogie Boogied there across the Summer.
That said, alongside those two tracks, I’ve got two more that I’ve included on various playlists for the car or even on my walks in the countryside; the romantically saxophone drenched Hate To Say will cheer me up when things get dark; and then there’s my Favourite Song on the all too brief CD; I Already Know which is the one song here that actually leads on Meade’s words and arrangement rather than the instrumentation, even though it’s quite spectacular in an intense fashion.

As HIP HIP HOORAY is so radically different from everything else Daniel Meade has recorded (apart from the preceding RP of course) it’s impossible to say that it’s better (or worse?) than anything else in his extensive back catalogue; but when you need to cheer yourself up; I guarantee that you won’t regret dusting this down in the upcoming months and years