Danny B Harvey: Fingertips combustible 

There are legions of able guitar slingers, all of whose efforts help stoke important flames. Kentucky-born Danny, though, ranks way high. 

Swing, Rockabilly, Jazz, Blues, Classical, Country - Danny interprets each with ease and the posture of an erudite academic (who's swung a chain or two, in his time). Indeed, listening raptly as he fashions wondrous works simultaneously indebted to American roots argots and accelerative of them as heady, reinvented creatures, one feels like a fortunate pupil.

Danny's features generally remain placid as he swipes at his Telecaster under multi-colored and strobing stage lights, tearing from it lick upon astounding lick. He occasionally shoots audiences a slight smile as if to ask, "See how easy this is?"

For him, perhaps.

An assiduous showman, he freely indulges both US cat and UK Teddy Boy styles. Black leather jackets are alternated with vivid and elegant drape ones. Motorcycle boots, vivid creepers, two-tone bowling shirts, solid-hued tees -- all report to his closet.

Danny has through decades of applied heart earned industry respect as a first-chair player guaranteed to add class to anyone's cause. His fretboard wizardry has advanced missions mounted by Levi Dexter, Wanda Jackson, Lee Rocker, and Bow Wow Wow. 

Also on the list are groups including The Rockats, Honeydrippers, Swing Cats, Lonesome Spurs, 13 Cats, 69 Cats, Devil's Daughters, and Headcat (with Lemmy Kilmeister, Slim Jim Phantom, David Vincent, Jonny Bowler, and Alan Davey).

His most recent recording, at this writing, is Headcat Plays Buddy Holly. The disc reflects Harvey's capacity for animation of pure Rock'n'Roll, its Blues and Country facets at high luster.

When renowned titans Danny, Slim Jim, and Lemmy cast fortunes into one jackpot, a supergroup of planetary capacity assumed configuration. Meat-and-potatoes, crasharound rocking was zested by the piquancy of gods.

Early on, Danny told Blabbermouth.net: "I'm so excited this album is coming out, showing how important Buddy Holly was to Lemmy, Slim Jim, and I. We all love Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee and Little Richard, but as Lemmy said in his book White Line Fever, 'Buddy Holly never did a bad track, as far as I could hear.' I'm sure that's why our first album was mainly Buddy Holly songs."

There exist no previous DBH discs one shouldn't obtain. Here are two that merit acknowledgement:

Having by the early 2000s already done movie soundtrack endeavoring, Danny was solicited by Cult Films for its 2004 Dark Angel: Bettie Page, which starred Paige Richards.

"I played all the instruments on those recordings, as I do on a lot of my recordings," Danny told me in a 2005 interview for Rockabilly magazine. "I always record the drums using a combination of sample loops and real drums. Of course, the guitars, keyboards, and bass are all me."

For Dark Angel, he composed and performed smart backing for vintage Bettie stills and film loops. Titles included "Whip Dance," "Fighting Girls," "Bound and Gagged," and "Whatever Happened To?"

Characteristically, his soloing enunciated a panoply of emotions and inclinations, from ecstasy to aggressiveness to pensive, introspective articulation.

"Bettie Page's influence over men and women alike is off the Richter Scale, as far as I'm concerned," he told me. "Girls all over the world dress like her, walk like her, and cut their hair like her. Her look is timeless and will always be in style."

For his 2005 solo, all-instrumental CD Rockabilly Jazz (Raucous 2005), Danny again played everything. Filled nearly to bursting with buoyant runs, bends, trills, and twangs, the disc was manna. He revisited classic modes and airs, charging them with fresh elan.

It was what a happy guitar turned loose sounds like.

"My finger-picking style is a direct derivative of Chet Atkins's and Merle Travis's picking style," Danny explained to me at the time. "I love to play loud and fast, but playing like Chet Atkins is very challenging."

Merle Travis tribute "The Travis Rag" is a carbonated, finger-picked romp over high-spirits clay. "Cattlesburg Express" rolls and rollicks merrily down driven-steel tracks in headlong ramble. "Dixie Doodle Dandy," splices traditional Southern and Northern melodies, recalling Link Wray's 1959 "Dixie Doodle."

In Jazz aspect, "Misty" unfurls sumptuous atmospherics. An exhumation of the Benny Goodman/Charlie Christian chestnut "Seven Come Eleven" gambols with uptown carriage. And the stately "Gee Baby, Ain't I Good To You?" ambles serenely, chin high.

An instinctive hybridizer, Danny is that rarest and most meritorious of players -- a heart-wired, creatively inquisitive, adventurous artist whose encyclopedic knowledge and expressive abilities awe riveted listeners and envious colleagues, alike.

His best work may well lie ahead. But Headcat Plays Buddy Holly and looking further back offer unique rewards.

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Videos: "Whiskey Hollar Blues" (solo w/Bettie reel)   "Crazy Baby" (13 Cats)   "Hammerhead" (solo)   "Whip Dance" (Paige Richards) "Not Fade Away" / "Fool's Paradise" (Headcat, live)   "Crying, Waiting, Hoping" (Headcat alternate mix)