You know all those sad country records you put on right before you hop in bed and drift off to sleep, just you and lonesome lying in a double bed? Well, this isn’t one of them. 29 Nights, the debut album from Strasburg, Virginia honky-tonker Danni Leigh, cranks out a heaping helping of hardcore hillbilly with a West Coast swagger that’ll make you want to stay up all your nights and shake what you got for all its worth.
The eleven tracks that make up 29 Nights are an excellent collection of traditional country and honky-tonk heavily influenced by the likes of Buck Owens, Merle Haggard and Dwight Yoakam. The other obvious influence is Patsy Cline, whose hometown of Winchester is within spitting distance of Strasburg. Not that Leigh belts it out vocally like Cline; she’s more a subdued, seductive twanger than a high-hitting belter. The similarity is in tough-gal attitude, which Leigh demonstrates fully on songs such as “Ol’ Lonesome” (also the name of her backing band) and “Weren’t You The One”.
Leigh, a former waitress at the Bluebird Cafe, Nashville’s legendary songwriter watering hole, had a hand in writing seven of the eleven tracks. The songs are instantly catchy, exploring common honky-tonk themes and rekindling memories of Webb Pierce and Kitty Wells. Two cover songs — “Mixed Up Mess Of A Heart”, written by Merle Haggard and Tommy Collins, and “Touch Me”, written by Willie Nelson — fit in well with the traditional feel of 29 Nights.