Danielle Peck - Self Titled
By: George Peden, CSO Staff Journalist

She’s labeled as one of the sexiest women in modern country music. There’s no doubting that. A peep at her popular internet Myspace page shows the click and visit brigade are in the hundreds of thousands. And if further conformation’s needed of her overall public pull, she’s just had ring tones to her latest songs made available for the mobile savvy. She’s a CMT regular, and these days she’s opening shows for Brad Paisley. Not bad, considering her self-titled release is only a debut effort. But then, this is Danielle Peck.

Peck, born in Jacksonville NC and the daughter of a U.S. Marine, has always had the music in her. The stories tell how, as a kid under 10, she wrote her first song completing the fantasy with cassette labels reading Danielle Peck Records. The music bug bit and she trudged the worn path of church choir, local bands at 16, with regional fairs and shows as the deciding push to try her luck in Nashville a few years later. Her determination, now well rewarded with a label signing, saw her having to wait tables to fund the dream, and along the way lose an initial signing to DreamWorks when a planned album faltered in the path of a takeover with Universal. Trying times for a singer who balanced her night-time table waiting and the long hours required, with her passion, song writing.

As she reveals at her website: "I'd wake up at 8 in the morning, go and write songs until 2 in the afternoon, change clothes, work the restaurant until 2 or 3 in the morning, get up early the next morning and do it again. "I became a Starbucks addict but I was having the time of my life! I was in Nashville, meeting people, starting to write with some great writers, I was loving every minute of it." 

That excitement comes over on her mostly co-written 11 tracker, out now on Big Machine Records. With stylish vocals, not unlike Canada’s main export, Shania Twain, on first hearing, Peck knows how to be soft, tender and tough, and at the same time deliver a top class album that doesn’t sink under its commercially orientated weight. This is a record for radio. This is a record for fans, those who like their bop and pop with some lyrical meat.

The album kicks into high gear with the problematic female whinge of every decade –“Finding A Good Man”. With a lyrical bucket of Corona and enough stories to last all night, Peck shares the misery of every modern Miss: the inability to snare a guy who’s honest and open, not a liar, cheater or a cold mistreater. Love’s rocky and emotional road also comes well charted on Fallin’ Apart” and “Only The Lonely Talkin’. More dash and spirited honesty hits the cardio region with a tune sure to be a female favorite, the payback “Sucks To Be You”. A smoldering make-up, often the stuff of troubled relationships I’m told, comes in the hot, hot “Kiss You On The Mouth”. “Honky-Tonk Time” shares the frankness of realizing plenty comes with accepting the here and now, while “Isn’t That Everything” is another album example of fine voice and style.

Speaking of her music, “"Everything comes down to being real," Peck says. ”Every song I do reflects something I've been through or something I've felt. My songs are my journals. Whatever I feel at the moment, whatever emotion I'm going through, is what I write about. When it's time to sing those songs, whether it's on stage or in the studio, those feelings are right there."

Here at CSO, we don’t need any convincing.

A value-add to the CD is a DVD. For play on your computer, the DVD shows Peck giving us a close and personal rendition of “I Don’t”. Further visual delights come with grabs from her CMT Studio 330 performance. She’s labeled as one of the sexist women in modern county music – the DVD proves it. .

She’s sexy. She’s talented. She’s modern country. Like the last track tells us, she’s “Somebody For You”. Definitely.

Click on the CD cover to order yours!
1. Findin' A Good Man  2. Isn't That Everything  3. Kiss You On The Mouth  4. Fallin' Apart  5. I Don't  6. Sucks To Be You	7. Honky-Tonk Time  8. Thirsty Again  9. Only The Lonely Talkin'  10. A Woman Does Too  11. Someobdy For You

Related Links:
Official Site  
MySpace  

This CD is a gem! Danielle is a refreshing newcomer in country music, with a unique vocal delivery and songs that you just know are coming from her heart. "Somebody For You" is the best "deep cut" I've heard in years, and having that song alone is worth the price of the CD. Oh yeah, Danielle has a personality as genuine as the songs on her CD. 
~ Jim

I love the whole cd. There's not one song on it I don't love. I think that Danielle has an absolutely beautiful voice and her songs sound a whole lot better than the pop-country songs that Carrie Underwood sings (even though I am a fan of her new single, "Before He Cheats"). I hope this cd is the start of a long lasting career and I can't wait for her sophomore album.
Thank you,
~ Heather 

I LOVE THIS CD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I listen to this cd everyday - I love her voice!!!! Her songs "I Don't" and "Thirsty Again" are bound 
to be #1 if played on the radio!!! In fact all of her songs could be #1 singles!!! Everyone should have this cd and get to know this incredible talent!!! I can not wait until her next cd is released!! 
~ Kathy - Ft. Leavenworth, KS

Loved the album! Finally a new artist that knows country music and has a voice. Very versatile voice and the main thing is she is country. One of my favorite singers now.
~ Jon