Actually exactly the right sort of one, Dattani sparkles with his deft delivery.
Release Date: 5th September 2025
Label: Self-Released
Format: CD / Digital
JOY
One of the joy about folk festivals is sneaking upon lesser known artists, lower down the order and where the promoters have taken a bit of a punt. It was Bromyard, last year, that I chanced on this fella, since which time I have been awaiting this, his second release, with no small anticipation. Was his show just the product of good vibes, place and circumstance, or was there really the something he seemed to offer?
Doofus that I am, I hadn’t initially even realised there was a first album, Santiago, but that was waaaaay back, 2018, and a lot has happened along the way. And I mean his way, given the slight encumbrance of a progressive neurological conditon, manifesting first in the hands and, I guess, feet. Not the best news a guitarist might wish to hear, especially if your stock in trade is a densely fingerpicked acoustic blues. “How long have I got, Doc’, as in playing guitar? With the gist being not so long, two years the first offer made. Dattani hid back in his shell before coming up with ways to work around the problem. A custom guitar and light amplification takes off much the load off his fingers, and his not so long is getting longer, closer to seven years now, and counting.
SUPPLENESS TO STUN
So, is this a sob story to evoke pity and justify any prangs and pratfalls? Wrongity wrong, his playing is still as supple as to stun, and is mentioned merely as he does, freely, so as to allow praise to be given to his determination and to the powers that look over him. As such, this is a tremendous set of, mainly, his own compositions, and a couple of standards, with a Bob Dylan thrown in, for good measure. Just he, that guitar, those fingers and the occasional patter of percussion, from Steph Saunders, performed live in the studio, give or take the odd judicious vocal overdub.
It is the title track with which the set begins. If you are sort of guessing where Wrong Kind Of One may be going, you wouldn’t be wrong, although, rather than whether brown men can sing the blues (they can), it is a more general treatise, with butterflies as a metaphor. In melody it is a distant relation of Will The Circle Be Unbroken, the slant of that song being equivalently relevant, as well as a song he covered on his debut, Santiago. His voice floats over his flying fingers like a hungry hawk, the song suddenly breaking free of any residual restraint as Saunders’ drums come clattering in. If you heard this, walking past a club or a festival tent, you’d want to go in.
DRUM/GUITAR INTERFACE
The much covered trad of Make Me A Pallet On The Floor gets a touch more sparkle than many can offer, the drum/guitar interface again an integral moment, with each fingerpick keeping Saunders on her rhythmic toes. Steady The Boat is more sombre fare, a slow walk of deliberation. Another of his, you can take this as a slice of secular gospel or something more topical. Either way, it works well, with the steel of his strings offering a warm metallic ring, it all swaying like the tide.
Gathering Acorns is an instrumental, possibly more of a tune to be be found more close to home. It has the feel of a country dance tune, easily imagined transcribed to fiddle and box. Saunders adds the sort of metronome that percussionists like Cormac Byrne or Evan Carson might admire. Golden Days then seems to trek back across the atlantic for the jingle jangle roll of early Dylan. Or, as he starts singing, the sound of Donovan, figuratively, I guess, a midway point. A lovely spritely song, both this and the tune before show Dattani isn’t locked into any one single style.
BENDING NOTES LIKE BOUGHS
Now I Can Play On’s title suggests it a song of glee, as he got his hands on his bespoke instrument. Here flashes of another Dylan creep into his rendition, the Blood On The Tracks era, both vocally and the construct of the verses. There is also a suggestion that, should he choose, he could really rock out, if paired with a dirty enough blues band. His soloing here is intuitive and inventive, notes bending like boughs in a stiff breeze. A second instrumental, Tony, follows, a short snatch of circular melody that stops hust as it starts, and reminiscent of an RT solo at the time of Unhalfbricking.
With the tempts and tastes of Dylan, the cover chosen is One Too Many Mornings, which flows in a torrent of resonance, guitar and voice equally lyrical. Sure, the song couldn’t be by anyone else, but the delivery is all Dattani’s own, with Saunders’ galloping contribution the gilt to the lily. I was a little breathless after that, so the slow canter of Just A Closer Walk with Thee is a welcome and agreeable way to close proceedings. Eschewing the words, he lets the melody of the old hymn do all the talking and singing required, as his fingers find the joy, whoever his or your thee may be.
A TONIC
This album is a tonic for ears caught up in the homogeneity of so much in folk music, a pleasing throwback to the styles and studied simplicity, as in it isn’t, of yesteryear. Long may your fingers pick, Mr. D!
Here’s the title track:
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