DANNY & THE CHAMPIONS OF THE WORLD : Hearts & Arrows

Jul 17 2011 by Paul Cole, Sunday Mercury

SONGWRITER Danny Wilson has made a startling discovery – the volume switch on his guitar.

The London lover of Americana has cranked up the amps, recruited a new band and indulged his Springsteen tendencies.

Hearts & Arrows, out tomorrow, finally finds Danny & The Champions Of The World fully dressed in rock and roll.

“On the back sleeve of the new record, I’m holding a Stratocaster,” grins Wilson, whose acoustic introspection won hearts and rave reviews over the course of his last two albums. “A friend saw it and said, ‘Woah, a Strat! Controversial ...’

“Yeah, too f***ing right! I wanna play a Strat, and I wanna plug it into a valve amp, and I wanna play music with my friends, and we’ve got a sax in the band now, so let’s have a party. We can play all night if you want. That’s what I love.

“I love folk music, and I always have. But I’m so f***ing bored of ‘new folk’ and the trendiness that surrounds it, everyone pretending that it’s 1971 again. I wanted to make a totally un-bearded record.

“My reference points this time were Black Flag and Bad Brains, Tom Petty and Thin Lizzy, not Nick Drake and Sweetheart Of The Rodeo. Forget 1971, this is 1976: Dr Feelgood, Nick Lowe, just great rock’n’roll.”

Wilson’s newfound zest is evident in a setlist which owes a lot to Bruce Springsteen. There are echoes of The Boss in almost every song, the lyrics transplanting London landmarks fair and square into New Jersey.

Brothers In The Night weaves throaty city sax into its sha-la-la; On The Street could be an out-take from The River. Even the song titles sound as if they’ve been culled from the Springsteen songbook.

And when Wilson picks up his trusty acoustic for bare bones Too Tough To Cry and Walk With Me, you’ll be searching for the ghost of Tom Joad or tracing the interstate route to Nebraska.

Elsewhere, Every Beat Of My Heart’s 12-string jangle nods to Tom Petty, whose influence is evident also in Heart & Arrow and Soul In The City. Not to be left out, upbeat Can’t Hold Back hints at Bon Jovi.

But perhaps the album highlight is the one song that breaks from formula. Colonel And The King, a Neil Young-like discourse on the relationship between Tom Parker and Elvis Presley, demands the repeat button.

One of the albums of the year, Hearts & Arrows is just champion. PC