Born in the UK but now firmly resident in what she refers to as ‘my spiritual home’, Nashville, Tennessee, soulful Americana singer Danni Nicholls continues to carve out her place in the global roots scene with a new album, her fourth, Making Moves, this time produced by Sarah Peacock. In recent times she’s come through some scary health challenges, involving major surgery, and now puts her heart firmly on her sleeve with this collection of new songs about love and loss and confronting change.
She grew up absorbing folk, country and blues, gleaned from her grandmother’s record collection, and she channels those influences into her own interpretation of Americana. For a girl from Bedford, she’s learned her lessons well.
She’s not breaking new ground here, but this collection has been written from the heart, and, along with several co-writers, she had a hand in writing every song on the album, one driven by her ‘love of a good song’, with no unnecessary frills or padding or raucous country workouts. Her songs are good enough for legendary DJ Bob Harris to praise the “elegance and beauty” of her music.
She has a soulful, expansive voice that wrings heartfelt emotion from the songs, such as on the gospel-infused ‘I’ll Carry On‘, and on ‘Honey‘, where she shows her vulnerability, “I should have seen it coming, but I was too busy loving”. Her voice occasionally drips velvet, as on the slow, melancholic ‘Well Enough Alone‘, about a woman not wanting to get involved any more, “I feel it in my bones, I’m well enough alone”.
Her backing band comprises some of the cream of seasoned Nashville musicians, who add richness and texture to tracks like ‘Four Frames‘, with its gorgeous slide guitar work, and the quite lovely ‘Love Is Letting Go‘. The sumptuous title track, the soulful Americana of ‘Making Moves‘, a song about broken love, sums up what Danni Nicholls‘ work is all about, and it’ll be certain to enhance her rep amongst her fanbase.
