Can’t Steal My Fire: The Songs of David Olney by Various Artists
Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt have covered songs by David Olney. They should seal the argument that Olney, a singer-songwriter who died onstage in January of 2020, was a creative force worth heeding. If not, Can’t Steal My Fire is a 17-track reinforcement of that argument.
Along with contributing flintily humorous and evangelical liner notes, Earle chimes in with “Sister Angelina,” which showcases many of Olney’s writerly strengths, including the ability to sketch a scene with a few deft lines, the knack for a melody that neither overwhelms the words nor recedes into window-dressing, and a sympathy for humanity in all its wonders and weaknesses.
Folksinger Mary Gauthier sinks into the weaknesses on a gracefully sturdy version of “1917,” fitting almost imperceptibly behind the mask of a French prostitute who does her best to let soldiers forget how likely they are to die, soon. Another folksinger, Janis Ian, waltzes through “She’s Alone Tonight,” which she wrote with Olney, as if shedding years as well as tears. (At 73, Ian is two years older than Olney was in 2020.)
Olney’s songs welcome various Americana adaptations: “Voices on the Water” lifts its hands toward the McCrary Sisters’ gospel, “Titanic” rises up to Afton Wolfe’s bluesy-rock growling, and “Deeper Well” flings itself into the dark honey of Lucinda Williams’ voice in a version of the song more sinister than the reflective take Olney’s co-writers Emmylou Harris and Daniel Lanois laid down in 1995.
Two dead men might make the most effective cases for Olney on Can’t Steal My Fire. The first is Olney’s long-departed friend Townes Van Zandt, whose 1977 live version of “Illegal Cargo” closes the tribute with a demonstration of how the work holds up in a North Carolina club. The other is Olney himself, delivering “Sonnet #40” with dark Tom Waitsian wit. If his fire was stolen, it wasn’t without a fight.
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