The journey down MOCKINGBIRD LANE took a swift turn last
night for Danni Nicholls as she began the live roll out of an album destined to
reach its destination of widespread acclaim. Birmingham’s respected folk and
roots venue, the Kitchen Garden Café, hosted the first date of Danni’s ‘Pre-Release
Tour’ and it was a golden opportunity to see if the album tracks from the new
record responded well to a stripped back delivery. The result exceeded
expectations, but that was hardly a surprise from a highly crafted song writer
capable of spinning a winning formula when pairing the tale with the melody.
The privilege of accessing a preview copy of the new
material had whetted the appetite enormously and the consensus amongst the
majority enjoying their inaugural listen was unanimous in the affirmative. Any
trepidations of playing a venue for the first time were soon removed as Danni
eased into a sweet groove of enlightening inter-song interludes to add
considerable value to a continual stream of beautifully sung originals and the
odd engaging cover. The latter started with a fine version of Randy Newman’s ‘Guilty’ as Danni paid tribute to one of
her heroes, Bonnie Raitt, who also covered it. Three of the other covers were
delivered in a part of the show where Danni reunited with an old playing
partner from her Brighton days and the pair rattled through KD Lang’s ‘Ridin’ the Rails’, the popular Gillian
Welch tune ‘Wayside/Back in Time’ and
the usual nod to the Man in Black with the much covered ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ closing the well-deserved requested encore.
All were impressively delivered off mic to add to the venue’s ambience.
Before we move onto the main purpose of the evening and the
launch of the new record, Danni reminded those present why her first full
length album was applauded so well when released in 2013. From the album of
the same name, Danni gave an insightful background to the origin and legal
issues surrounding ‘A Little Redemption’
with its quaint source dating back to a casual read about a local Suffolk Women’s
Institute. Perhaps the most poignant story attached to the songs from this
album was the pride flowing from Danni with regards to the dream scenario-turned
to reality in covering Will Kimbrough’s ‘Goodnight, Moon’.
A decent proportion of Danni’s songs have surfaced from her
trips to Nashville where she has had the good fortune to record both albums.
One of the early favourites from the new record rose to an even higher plane of
appreciation when played live as Danni filled every corner of the Café with
pure Americana with the delectable ‘Leaving
Tennessee’. Written on a journey from Nashville to Atlanta, the song was
contrasted in its geographical sentiment when matched up with another from the
new record, ‘Long Road Home’, with
its final destination being her hometown of Bedford. Another immensely ear
pleasing tune, ‘Travellin’ Man’, was
unveiled as an old song finally finding a home on the album, where it acts as
the perfect closer. The wonderful lyrics of ‘Beautifully Broken’ were given a timely reminder and Danni used the
striking chorus of ‘Where the Blue Train
Goes’ for an effective call and response piece of audience participation.
The pre-release nature of this tour meant the physical
copies were not yet ready for sale but those signing up on the evening in advance
were also given the pristine preview of three other tracks in ‘Back to Memphis’, ‘Between Forever and
Goodbye’ and, in Danni’s opinion, the song ‘Sad Swan’ living up to the description in the title with its
projection of emotion. Throw in ‘Dragons
in the Distance’, ‘Hey There, Sunshine’ and ‘Bird of Paradise’ from the first album and we had an excellent comprehensive
gig, rich in fine songs and packed with the indebted ideals of how American
inspired roots music can be portrayed with English charm.
This was the first opportunity to catch a full Danni
Nicholls show, to follow up witnessing a couple of festival sets and many
listens to her back catalogue of two albums and two Eps. It is also important
that Danni makes strides to take her music out of the South East to promote her
talents to an audience that will surely grow. Midlands music fans will get
another chance to see Danni when she supports Daniel Romano in Coventry next
month and hopefully the second phase of the album promotion tour will see a
further return to the area.
Let’s conclude however by returning to the present and
reflecting favourably that we are certainly blessed to have a talented and
affable singer-songwriter in Danni Nicholls showcasing our genre with the best
of British. By matching the recorded and live material with equal high
competence, an artist of absolute integrity continues to emerge.