Marvellous stories and enduring characters.
This is like the All-Star game in Major League baseball, but instead of Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Bryce Harper, Mookie Betts and Christian Yelich, executive producer Gwil Owen lined up such Americana luminaries as Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, Dave Alvin, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Jim Lauderdale to offer songs for the 17-track double album “Can’t Steal My Fire: The Songs of David Olney which has been released by New West Records.
To quote Oscar Wilde: One has the right to judge a man by the effect he has over his friends.” David Olney had a powerful effect on many musicians. From the album’s liner notes, Steve Earle, who covered ‘Sister Angelina,’ said, “I became positively evangelical about the songs of David Olney, and I preached the gospel to anyone who would listen.” Or take the words of Emmylou Harris, “David Olney tells marvellous stories, with characters who cling to the hope of enduring love, all the while crossing the deep divide into that long, dark night of the soul.”
This album is not about the musicians that have donated songs to the effort, instead it’s a recognition of David Olney’s work as a singer/songwriter and the songs he has left the world in twenty albums after his death onstage in 2020 at the age of 71. ‘Steal My Thunder’ goes all the way back to 1981, when a few years after moving to Nashville, Olney and lead vocalist Tommy Goldsmith formed The X-Rays. This was one of the incendiary new wave-era live bands that was overlooked in the country world of Music City. Dave Alvin captures the essence of this compilation, intoning the lyrics that became its title in the bluesy song: You can steal my thunder, but you just can’t steal my fire.
Olney did not have a clear path commercially and his records didn’t sell in the precious metals categories, but when has that ever been the scale by which a songwriter’s worth is evaluated? His greatest success may have come when Emmylou Harris covered the title song to his “Deeper Well” album (1988) for her imaginative “Wrecking Ball.” On his record, Olney played a sweet duet with Mark O’Connor on fiddle and mandolin. Lucinda Williams chose to put a dark, ruminative spin in contrast to Olney’s reflective take.
Like Townes Van Zandt, another songwriter who was challenged to find popular success, Olney struggled to find a wide audience. The last song on this tribute album is an old Van Zandt recording of ‘Illegal Cargo,’ which was the title song on an obscure live album Olney made at the Stonevalley Club in Lichtenvoorde, The Netherlands. Ironically, the song Olney chose for an encore in that set was Van Zandt’s ‘Snowin’ on Raton.’
The two songwriters obviously had a mutual admiration for each other’s work. Van Zandt once bought Olney a sport jacket at a Goodwill store and compared his friend to Mozart and Dylan, writing: “Dave Olney is one of the best songwriters I’ve ever heard — and that’s true. I mean that from my heart.” The words are excerpted from a letter typed and signed by him for use in the liner notes for Olney’s album “Roses,” (1991).
The final album Olney made was “Whispers and Sighs” with Anana Kaye, who is part of an indie duo with guitarist Irakli Gabriel. The song is from his “This Side or the Other” (2018) album and has to do with his thoughts on spies. In one interview, Olney explained: “You’re constantly trying to keep track of what you have told people in the past. Then I thought, that’s what everyone is doing anyway. No human relationship is entirely honest. We lie to protect ourselves but we also lie to protect those we love. And we lie to ourselves to make reality bearable.”
At the time Olney was recording what is now known as Americana. It was called No Depression music, which was more of an underground term for a type of music that was in its infancy within the public consciousness. There wasn’t much in the way of support for musicians mining that territory. When you put your heart and soul into making music that not enough people are hearing, it tends bring a person down.
One of the best things about “Can’t Steal My Fire” is that the musicians interpret Olney’s songs rather than offering reasonable facsimiles. Afton Wolfe growls like a hungry grizzly on the tragic love song Olney wrote about the doomed steamship, ‘Titanic’ on his “Eye of the Storm” album. Overall, his first solo album isn’t one of Olney’s better efforts, mostly acoustic and sometimes hesitant. But writing from the point of view of an iceberg luring the ship to its grave shows this wasn’t a songwriter out of his depth. It’s creepy but cool and Wolfe sings it well: I reach for you alone, Come to me, Come to me. Not exactly your radio-friendly kind of tune.
This album makes a constructive case for holding Olney in esteem. Here is what Tommy Goldsmith said when asked about his former partner: “My God, look at what he’s done over the years. It’s a really impressive body of work.”
