Self-released

*****

I’ve played this album on repeat for a couple of weeks, and each time heard something different. Americana blues-soul singer-songwriter Danni Nicholls travels along a different path than she usually takes to an album. This eight-song collection finds the acclaimed Bedford-born-and-raised singer digging deep into her family’s Anglo-Indian roots, as she traces the thread that runs throughout her career, one that rejects being confined to a certain genre and comes from her life experience of having a mixed cultural family heritage. Inspired by her maternal grandmother, who grew up in a Colonial European family in India, these eight songs are full of romance, daydreams, and vivid memories. Like many Anglo-Indian families, Danni’s would listen to 1950s and 1960s American country music, by the likes of Jim Reeves, Slim Whitman, Patsy Cline and Eddy Arnold. They would compile notebooks of the song lyrics and gather around an old radio and sing along to the familiar songs that they heard. A few years ago, her Nan gave Danni the notebooks. Enthralled by the music she heard growing up at her Nan’s knee, she has taken those musical memories and created her own music through a lens that offers a wider spectrum of influences to ooze in. Now Nashville-based, she has revisited some of those classic songs that have been passed down through her family with a few self-penned songs, that fit neatly into the concept. 

Danni evokes the smooth sounds of classic country in a manner which few modern acts are willing to take on. The ghosts of 1960s Nashville Sound, particularly Owen Bradley, Chet Atkins, Billy Sherrill, Don Law and Frank Jones, haunt this luminous album. Credit should be given to producer-musician Sarah Peacock and the expert Nashville players—Brett Resnick, Shawn Byrne and Emerald Rae—all of whom demonstrate that it’s not what you play, but what you don’t play, to create a clean, spacious sound that perfectly enhances the lyrics and Danni’s pristine vocals. The five cover songs are almost as familiar to me as breathing. Did I really need to hear another rendition of Crazy? One of the more simply arranged covers on the album, it’s also one of the most stunning. Here Danni is exploring pathos with an addicting blend of unrelenting melancholy and deeply felt soulfulness. 

The other tracks on the album are just as stellar. Can’t Help Falling In Love is pure romance, with every steel guitar note a pheromone rush. You can practically see the Harvey’s Bristol Cream on the nightstand, right under the velvet paintings and strobe light. ¾ tempo (waltz) songs are not as common today as they were in the deep past years of country, but I think it’s a nice and important rhythmic variation in the music. It’s a pure delight to hear Tennessee Waltz and get all nostalgic for the good ol’ days. The same goes for My Happiness, a song that I’ve heard, and in a way, sort of taken for granted for years, without fully realising what a well-written song this is, until hearing the simple emotion in Danni’s timeless rendition. The indescribably aching heartbreaking Roy Orbison ballad Blue Bayou opens with haunting steel guitar, gently building up to an invocation or casting a spell, as Danni showcases the ethereal power of her rich vocals. 

Between the River And The Railway has Danni exploring her intrusive thoughts as she outlines her own foibles with quietly poetic intensity in a captivating and colourful exploration of self. Ancient Embers is a damn-near-perfect stroll into vintage smooth country. There are a couple of rounds of high ooh-oohs that hint at her ecstatic vocal twirls in this stirringly passionate song. The title song is a lovable re-telling of her beloved Nan’s love story, that began with meeting a boy from the south under a Neem plum tree, resulting in marriage, a move to England and Danni’s own family. It’s a delightful song that introduces this lovingly created collection of songs and is guaranteed to give hours of listening pleasure to all that hear it.

https://www.danninicholls.com/

August 2024