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“I’ve had to reach and grow, to find something bigger than myself to keep going,” says Dorothy Daniel, one half of singer-songwriter duo The Danberrys. “That’s the kind of music that moves me. I want to hear something that makes me want to get up and keep going––to feel like a warrior.”

The Danberrys are somehow both charmingly old-world and very much of this moment. The married couple’s rich pastoral blues and muscly folk evoke the big-hearted storytelling of pioneering giants like the Carter Family but could only come now, as a mixed offshoot of roots music’s ever-growing family tree. “We’ve always written from the heart and from experience,” says Ben DeBerry. “We’ve never sat down and been like, Alright, this is what we think radio or other people want. It’s always been very organic.”

That unforced creative approach enlivens everything The Danberrys do, including their two latest projects: the Songs We Sing EP, due out May 7, 2021, and Shine Expanded Edition, set for release July 23, 2021. A five-song collection of thoughtful acoustic covers, Songs We Sing comforts and delights with a natural ease that could only come from sharing songs that have become part of you. Iconic tracks written by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young; Crosby, Stills, and Nash; Neil Young; Townes Van Zandt; and George Harrison sound fresh and bright in The Danberrys’ tender care. The couple dedicated the project to their daughter, Ollie. “It’s the songs we’ve been singing together since we met in high school,” Dorothy says of the EP. “Ollie just loves it when we all sit down together to play and sing. So now, we sing all those old songs we’ve always sung for her.”

Shine Expanded Edition will include four live tracks of songs recorded at Grimey’s New & Preloved Music in East Nashville, plus the covers from Songs We Sing and the original Shine studio recordings. The live versions of “Shine,” “Holding the Bag,” “Love Conquers War,” and “Rain” pulse with the innocent joy of life that would become sorely missed after the pandemic quieted live shows.

The Danberrys delivered their first live performance in almost a year back in January at Nashville’s 3rd & Lindsley. The socially distanced return to the stage was cathartic for artists and audience alike. “There was a point in the show where I looked out in the middle of a song, and everyone on stage and in the crowd was smiling and so happy,” Ben says. “It was so obvious at that moment in time how much that has been missed. It was a reminder for all of us that live music is a communal experience––and one that maybe we’d taken for granted.”

About a year after their original release, the songs on Shine ­­­soar even higher. Anchored in Ben’s tasteful guitar and driven by Dorothy’s thunderous vocals, the twelve-song collection reveals a pair of artists putting years of passionate study in bluegrass, blues, funk, folk, gospel, and pop to brilliant use: Conversational stories and metaphorical sketches of the natural world rest on beds of complex bluesy folk. “I’ve always loved music that makes you guess what it’s about,” Dorothy says. “We want our songs to be vague enough that they could be interpreted to mean different things.”

“We could spell it out,” Ben adds. “But we’re bored with the obvious.”

Dorothy and Ben both grew up just outside of Nashville, Tennessee, in Dickson County. Ben grew up in Dickson, proper, but Dorothy lived outside of town on a large tobacco farm, where her closest neighbors were at least a mile away. “En Vogue, Ace of Base, Mariah Carey––I had all of that music on tape,” Dorothy says. “I used to walk around singing at the top of my lungs to my walkman.”

A preternaturally gifted singer, Dorothy first performed on her hometown church stage––after her parents combatted her severe stage fright with gentle reminders that everyone would just “be so disappointed” if she didn’t get up to sing. Up the road in Dickson, Ben picked up the guitar at 10 and never put it down.

Ben and Dorothy began dating in high school and didn’t break up until two years into college. Right before the two parted ways, Ben gave Dorothy a guitar and taught her a handful of chords and songs. “I was left with a broken heart, a guitar, and three chords,” Dorothy says, then laughs. “So I just started writing––mostly sad songs about Ben.”

Five years later, the two ran into each other in their college town, Cookeville, Tennessee. Four months after that, they were married. The two moved to East Nashville, where Ben––who had been performing locally for years––became a regular at the now-iconic Wednesday-night bluegrass jams at The 5 Spot. “I immersed myself in playing, and I just started writing one day,” Ben remembers. “Dorothy said, ‘Those songs are cool––’”

“I said those songs are amazing!” Dorothy interrupts, laughing. In 2009, the two recorded Ben’s original material together, and The Danberrys were born. More than a decade later, six Independent Music Award nominations, including two nods for best Americana album and one for best EP, punctuate their résumé. Their 2016 LP Give & Receive earned serious acclaim, and the pair’s fourth album, Shine, sails past the high expectations that ensued. Produced by ace drummer Marco Giovino (Band of Joy, Patty Griffin, Buddy Miller) and executive produced by Brian Brinkerhoff, Shine captures the Danberrys’ fiercely guarded independence––and revels in it. Dorothy’s commanding voice roars low and high––an ideally nuanced partner for Ben’s subtly virtuosic guitar playing. For the first time in their career, the two cowrote every song together, pulling in the help of a third songwriter on a handful of the tracks. “Now we don’t want to write without each other,” Dorothy says.

The title track kicks off the album with moody, guitar-punched swagger. Darkness sets the stage only to give way to the light Dorothy and Ben refuse to stop seeking. “The song is a reminder––a daily mantra,” Dorothy says. “How do you get through today and continue to grow and let go of all the things from your past that want to keep you down and keep you from being who you really are in the world?” Beginning with only Dorothy’s voice, which is soon joined by Ben’s somber electric guitar, “The Mountain” addresses similar life-affirming themes. The incomparable Darrell Scott adds backing vocals to the track, which grooves as it soars.

“There is a lot of spirituality in our writing. We’ve been through a lot of really hard stuff. We had to grow a lot. That comes out in our music,” Dorothy says.

“Holding the Bag,” which Dorothy points to as a favorite, mixes sorrow and masterful storytelling, pulling listeners into an unnamed character’s heartbreaking perspective. Dorothy has a habit of diving into her stories and the people in them. “Please forgive me, I’m a selfish man,” she sings on the heavy “Never Gone”—a favorite track of Ben’s. The two wrote the song about a friend’s father who battled chronic illness and chose to say goodbye on his own terms as much as possible, breaking the hearts of his daughters and wife in the process. Haunting “Francis” is another compelling experimentation with perspective and narrative.

While sadness and longing course through the entire record, bright-eyed positivity is never far away. “Love Conquers War” offers timely wisdom, while “Coals Glow” shares a story of stubborn light. Album closer “Rain” features Dorothy and Ben singing in unison, and once again, what begins as embattled pleading and worry unfolds into faith and unity.

Project standout “The River is Wide” is a stunner with classic bones and modern candor. Dorothy got the idea for the song after a vision she experienced while meditating, a practice she’s employed to re-center and heal for years. Building from a subdued reflection over strings to a heart-pounding, tambourine-led chant, “The River is Wide” lays bare the mental and emotional chains trauma leaves behind, which engulf survivors in feelings of self-doubt and insignificance. “My childhood is scarred by severe physical and psychological trauma, and I was enslaved to the things that happened to me when I was little,” Dorothy says. “I hadn’t really been able to live my life––suffered from stage fright, zero self-confidence, and self-hatred. I had to reach for something way bigger than I am to get out of that. I had to keep on walking.” With strength and vulnerability, the track epitomizes the entire album’s tender balance of hard times and hope.

These days, Ben and Dorothy are writing songs for their next album, and always holding music as part of a bigger purpose. “My goal in life is to figure out what we are doing here. Why are we here?” Dorothy says. “There are a lot of reasons to feel helpless, pointless, and irrelevant in this world. I want people to feel hope when they listen to our music. That’s the reason we do it.”

—Elisabeth Parks