Search - David Olney, Sergio Webb, Jack Irwin :: Live at Norm's River Roadhouse 1

Sweet Poison Indeed

David Zimmerman | Baton Rouge, LA USA | 11/17/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I saw David Olney and his guitarist Sergio Webb at a small club in Baton Rouge, LA last week and was blown away. An unprepossessing grandfatherly type offstage, Olney is a first-rate songwriter and dynamic presence onstage. This album is a live recording made at his "home" club, Norm's River Roadhouse in Nashville, TN. Tracks 3,4 and 6 blew me away on stage and they are nearly as good in the live recording.



Track Three, "Wait Here For the Cops", combines defiance and submission as Olney sings in the voice of a young man who's prepared to put an end to his wayward ways, but not without a loud sendoff, as he cries "I'm gonna wait here for the cops!" at the end of each verse. Guitarist Webb makes his instrument sound like a police siren, albeit more the European than American version. Olney's passion in his live performance is a little scary - you fear a brain hemorrhage (his) coming on - and it makes you wonder just what will happen when the cops do arrive.



Next comes the best song on the album, and one of my new all-time favorites, "Sweet Poison". Olney begins the live version with a retelling of the death of the "coolest, kindest, hippest, and smartest guy in Athens - Socrates." The narrative reaches its climax as Socrates asks for a little something to help the hemlock go down. From there it's get out of the way for another 3-1/2 minutes of sweet poison.



Track Six, "Postcard from Mexico", is another imaginative number, telling the story of the singer's infatuation with a female that leaves him in jail and her in Mexico, from which she sends him the title postcard. Webb provides echo and response vocals through a bullhorn. Amazing stuff.



I also enjoyed "Oh Yeah (Dead Man Shoes)" - another guy-meets-girl-and-then-they-commit-a-crime song that has a happier ending - "It's a perfect world with a drug store girl and a pair of dead man shoes."



The remaining tracks feature songs from unusual perspective - a ventriloquist's dummy sings to his "master" in "Who's the Dummy Now?" "Titanic" is the story of the famous sinking told from the view of the iceberg.



Film noir gets a nod in a quieter number, "Sunset on Sunset Boulevard".



Olney and Webb's best cover is of Townes Van Zandt's "Snake Song". You'll also get to hear David do a very dramatic reading of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan," followed by a couple of hard-rocking numbers, "Lee's Highway" and "The Highway's Coming".



I tried to characterize Olney as being like other artists - Tom Waits comes the closest, but Olney is both more melodic and more energetic. Performance-wise, Meat Loaf might be the closest comp. Van Zandt, Leonard Cohen and John Hiatt, all favorites of mine, may also be influences. But mostly Olney is himself, songwriting and performing with Webb's brilliant help on the electric guitar.



Five screaming stars! Unconditionally recommended to fans of imaginative and literate rock and folk music. See this man in concert wherever you can."