After 2014's career-spanning live album, London-based Australian Danny Wilson keeps the momentum going with ten all-new modern-day soul standards.
As you might guess from the bearded and rustic figure pictured on the album cover, Wilson is a man who has no great truck with modernity. His voice has the gravelly charm of a young Rod Stewart and the Champs' sound embraces the classic Soul-R'n'B of the 1960s.
Female backing singers and a rousing horn section take us back to the golden era of Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, and Wilson Pickett while electric and steel guitars adding some rootsy country-soul flourishes.
Produced by Champs' bass player Chris Clarke at his north London studio Reservoir Sound. the songs are played with an exuberant immediacy as if the band were performing before a live audience.
Clear Water kicks things off swimmingly and the rest of the album flows just as smoothly. Upbeat ballads like Just Be Yourself and It'll Be Alright In The End emphasise the blue sky thinking.
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“Every song on the album is a love-song of some fashion,” Danny says. “These are love songs about friends, about ex-friends, about wives… All different kinds of love.” This is even true of the track This Is Not A Love Song, which, despite being about broken promises and unfulfilled plans, contains no trace of bitterness.
There's nothing particularly innovative about the music this band make but the joyful enthusiasm for what they do is infectious. The formula may not be new but, as the man said, if it ain't broken, why fix it?
Danny & The Champions of the World's' website
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