Bedfordshire, UK may not be the obvious location that springs to mind
when thinking of American roots music, but there is a corner of its county seat Bedford that will forever be intrinsically linked to Nashville, TN.
Growing up in a Bedford family who loved a party, Danni Nicholls has been around this kind of music all her life. “The anglo-indian side of my family, my mum’s side, are party animals,” the singer-songwriter says,
“we had constant house parties at my grandparents place, parties in halls, or with family in London. There would just always be great American roots music blasting out, jive dancing and singing. Music from rock n roll to country and western to soul. My grandmother loves country music and would often talk about the Grand ole Opry, so it was just in my psyche from a really young age.”
At 16 Danni inherited, from her uncle Heathcliffe a 1963 Burns London electric guitar that family legend has it once belonged to that most American of early English rockers Billy Fury, and a penny dropped.
“There’s baby video footage of me aged three or four, and I’m looking around the room singing a song, free-styling the lyrics about what I can see! So I guess it’s always been there, but once I had the guitar and could accompany myself, songwriting was immediate and natural. I actually started playing the saxophone at 9 but you can’t write songs for singing along to with a saxophone.”
As soon as Danni knew two chords she was writing her own songs, and soon gigging at school assemblies, even selling home made albums of her songs to school friends, family and teachers. Fast forward a few years to one evening in her Brighton flat when Danni and a friend rented Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line from the local DVD store.
“I’d decided I wanted to make a living out of music but there was just something missing from my own songs I couldn’t put my finger on what. We put on Walk The Line and the music from my childhood started blaring out at me. I hadn’t listened to country for a very long time and I suddenly got all emotional! I felt this was the missing link, this was home”
Danni’s love of 50s America, rock n roll and Patsy Cline suddenly coalesced, and a path opened in front of her. A year studying songwriting and music business in Brighton followed, but more important to her musical education in the city was what she learned from promoting her own music nights.
“I’d studied theatre at uni, but I’d also been gigging since I was 16, and people had been paying me for it. How cool is that?” she laughs. “I didn’t really fancy the unpredictable auditioning life of an actor but as a singing/songwriting music promoter you can always play at your own gigs, so every Sunday for two years I ran ‘Americana Unplugged’ at a little Brighton pub called ‘The Foundry’. “It was a great learning curve and platform to develop my live performance”.
The next piece of the puzzle fitted when Danni met her future producer, Nashville-based songwriter and producer Chris Donohue.
“I went to see one of my heroes Emmylou Harris at the Royal Albert Hall with a friend who knew her bass player, Chris. We got chatting for a while and I mentioned I was heading to Nashville in a few weeks. He gave me his card, said to let him know when I got to town. Five minutes later he was up on stage with Emmylou! Obviously I got in touch and the rest is history!”
Their first project together was in 2013 - Danni’s critically acclaimed debut album, A Little Redemption, was recorded in East Nashville and features a stellar cast including the legendary Al Perkins on Dobro (Bob Dylan, Gram Parsons, The Rolling Stones) and Steve Fishell on Pedal Steel (Albert Lee, Willie Nelson, Linda Ronstadt).
“I’d had this burning desire to get to Nashville, to soak up the energy and see where my heroes made their music. In 2010 I did a month-long road trip in the States, went to Tupelo to Elvis’ house, Sun Studios, Memphis, the whole musical pilgrimage thing, but I’ll never forget the time we first stepped onto Broadway. I couldn’t believe I was actually on the famous honky-tonk street where the likes of Johnny and Patsy had walked. Locals sometimes dismiss it as just a tourist trap, but I’ve been many times now and I still love it. The musical history of that town is like a fairytale. I dreamt as a child of going to Nashville to make music, and it’s now happened – twice.”
If recording in Nashville was a dream come true, so was watching her songs take shape with a band. Especially on new album Mockingbird Lane,
“Chris is an incredible bass player. Add Bryan Owings on drums, Will Kimbrough on guitars, and Ralph T Lofton on keys and that’s a killer band right there! As I’d already recorded my parts, I got to sit on a sofa watching the magic unfold. It was an absolutely insane thrill for me.” The result is a rawer, grittier album than her debut, far more ‘live’ sounding".
A vibrant, spellbinding performer, over the years Danni has been invited to support many artists including Todd Snider, Kim Richey, Jim Lauderdale, Angus and Julia Stone, Bobby Bare Jr, Otis Gibbs, Mark Olsen, Nell Bryden, Tift Merrit and Diana Jones. It’s in a live setting where Danni’s songs really shine and translate gloriously from the recordings to the stage. Written on, about and almost for the road, she loves the touring life so much she hasn’t really had a permanent home for years.
“I do spend a lot of time on my own, gazing out of train windows getting to the next gig. I totally see why train songs are such a ‘thing'… as you roll along, well there’s that infectious, hypnotic Johnny Cash beat going on, but also the scenery is ever-changing and your mind is free to wander. Good combo!” For every journey’s arrival, however, on the flip side there’s the leaving part; a reoccurring theme in Danni’s songs. That and crying. “Ha – yeah. That happens. It’s an emotional roller coaster of a life and very transient, I just get itchy feet - I want to move around and have different things to write about. I suppose as a songwriter you just want to have that constant inspiration and being on the move provides that for me.”
One thing that hasn’t moved very far is that Burns guitar. Any chance it might hit the road too?
“You know, I’ve never gigged with that guitar, it’s still in my room. Maybe I will ‘go electric’ one day! It means so much to me, though. I really hope the Billy Fury story is true. The timing and the circumstances would match up. My uncle hung out in pubs around West Hampstead, which is where Billy lived and recorded, he bought the guitar from a mate who told him that he’d bought it from Billy. “I’ve never delved into it too far because you know what? I don’t want to know!”
Maybe some stories should never be fully told, but Danni Nicholls’ will melt your heart into the sole of your cowboy boots.
Interview with Andy Fyfe
