Olney brings his music to Dunkeld

Jan 20 2009 by Andrew Welsh, Perthshire Advertiser Tuesday

A STAR of Celtic Connections will be playing an intimate Perthshire show next week.

American singer-songwriter David Olney will take time out from the Glasgow-based folk-rock extravaganza to appear at the Taybank Hotel in Dunkeld on Saturday week (January 31).

Over an impressive career spanning four decades, Olney has built a reputation as a performer with a sharp literary mind that often cuts to the bone of the human condition.

Whether the subject matter is heartbreak or armed robbery, his cinematic style and fearless approach to lyric writing have won him plaudits as a kind of musical outlaw.

His new CD, One Tough Town, has been likened to a back roads tour of US music, proving that even in his late 50s, Olney is uninterested in playing it safe.

Olney’s first taste of success came in 1975 when he fronted the band The X-Rays and began performing in clubs around Nashville.

By 1978 they were one of the hottest bands on the city’s alternative music scene, winning a slot on Austin City Limits, opening for Elvis Costello & the Attractions, and landing a deal with Rounder Records.

Olney later signed as a solo artist, releasing six critically acclaimed albums by 1999, followed by Omar’s Blues in 2000 on the Dead Reckoning label.

In 2003 he signed with the Austin based Loud House Records and released The Wheel, followed by Migration in 2005.

Olney’s songs have been covered by numerous artists, including Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, Del McCoury, Steve Earle, Johnny Cash, Steve Young and Lonnie Brooks, winning him a worldwide reputation as one of the best songwriters in America.

Tickets for his Taybank show are available from the venue.

For more artist info, visit the website www.davidolney.com