Q5: Gwil Owen talks about David Olney & the Can't Steal My Fire LP (2024)

Nashville musician Gwil Owen was a longtime friend and collaborator with David Olney and the Executive Producer of the recently-released tribute album, Can’t Steal My Fire: The Songs of David Olney. The Reverend pitched a few questions to Owen about the album via email:

Q1. How did Can’t Steal My Fire come about?
David was my closest friend and we had many conversations about the fact that he probably wouldn’t get true recognition until he was dead and gone. One night we played a show together and met Regina McCrary. After she left Dave said, “we should get the McCrary Sisters to cut one of our songs.” I said, “what song of ours would they cut?” and Dave said, “Voices on the Water!” I always remembered that conversation and it was an honor to make that wish come true. When he died, I realized that I was the logical person to make this record and his family agreed.
 
Q2. How did you choose which artists to include, and did they select the songs they performed?
David spent a lifetime on the road, so he got to know a lot of his fellow songwriters, and I knew that he was greatly admired in that circle. I mostly focused on those that I also knew personally, as it made it a lot easier. Steve Earle, Dave Alvin, Mary Gauthier, and R.B. Morris all knew which songs they wanted to do, so of course I agreed to all of those; I chose most of the rest.
 
Q3. Were there any artists who you wanted to include on the album but couldn’t get?
The first artist who agreed to be on the record was John Prine. Tragically, he died of COVID just a month later, before he had a chance to record his track. 2020 was a year of heartbreaks. I spent a good while talking with Tom Waits’ people; he loved the tracks I sent him and set up a Zoom meeting with his record label. I thought for sure we had him, but in the end it didn’t work out. There’s also a never-released Johnny Cash version of “Jerusalem Tomorrow” that I couldn’t manage to pry out of Rick Rubin’s hands.
 
Q4. How would you describe David Olney’s music?
Dave was a master storyteller; he could work all the necessary elements into a song so skillfully that you never noticed the enormous amount of information he was giving you. Listen to “Illegal Cargo” for example. He also had a tremendous imagination; he thought of approaches and points of view that would never occur to most writers. Telling the story of the Titanic from the perspective of the iceberg is probably the most famous example of that. Just as important as all his technical skill and creativity was his tremendous empathy. He really cared about people, and that big heart of his is beating loudly throughout every single one of his songs.
 
Q5. What would you like listeners to know about Olney?
He made about 20 albums in his lifetime and there are great songs on every one. If you like this record, I encourage you to check out the songs as sung by the man himself.

Buy the album from Amazon: Can’t Steal My Fire: The Songs of David Olney

Also on That Devil Music: Can't Steal My Fire album review

Q5: Kerry Landreth of Birdseed talks about music

Kerry Landreth is lead singer and songwriter for the San Francisco rock band Birdseed, whose recently-released 10” EP Not Out of Time the Reverend found quite impressive, writing that “Not Out of Time is one of those rare treasures that will take 20 years or so for rock music’s critical cognoscenti to catch up with.” Comprised of singer Landreth, guitarists Jamie Goodyear and Mason Morfit, bassist Lane Murchison, keyboardist Brian Hetherington, saxophonist Peter Landreth, and drummer Scott Bell, Birdseed delivers “grown-up rock ‘n’ roll from an adult’s perspective, with lyrics forged in the crucible of life.”

After my review of Not Out of Time was published, Birdseed guitarist Mason Morfit got in touch. He kindly hooked me up via email with Landreth for the following Q5 interview and she graciously took time out of her schedule to answer a few questions about the best band that you’ve haven’t heard (yet).

Q1. What originally got you interested in singing and music?

I grew up surrounded by music – I lived in London during Andrew Lloyd Weber’s heyday and sang songs from musicals in my living room every night. I sang in an a capella group and a band at Exeter, and then in an a capella group at Stanford. Joining Birdseed was a joyful revisit of the things I loved most. I’d beaten breast cancer in 2010-11 and going through that was as transformative as you’d imagine. Except my version of taking the “cancer lesson” wasn’t to slow down, it was to speed up.

Luckily I fell in with the right group of musicians – we were all at a point in our lives where we’d lived enough to know what was important to us. And to our surprise and delight, we found we write great music about it. My cancer came back in 2015, which created a sense of urgency. Musically, things ignited. We started writing, recording, and playing live with a vengeance.

Q2. Who are your musical and songwriting influences?

Sheryl Crowe, Natalie Merchant, Ray LaMontagne, Fleetwood Mac, Eric Clapton, and J.J. Cale.

Q3. Why compile Birdseed's singles onto vinyl rather than CD, and why a 10" EP?

For the same reason we are writing music about people our age. It’s for the generation who grew up loving vinyl.

Q4. Why record and release singles rather than a full-length album?

We record them as soon as we write them (and inspiration only comes when it comes). We are so excited to share them with our friends that we can't hold anything back for a LP. Most of the fun is from sharing this stuff.

Q5. Has the band been approached by any labels, or would y’all prefer to keep doing your records yourselves?

We signed early to Bird Records because of how cool the Bird school and studio are. That place brought music to all of our kids. Most of them now play music and have been in bands. We are an independent group of people and independent label makes sense for us.

Related content: Birdseed’s Not Out of Time EP review

Q5: Willie Nile talks about Bob Dylan

Photo courtesy Conqueroo Music Publicity

 
Singer/songwriter Willie Nile is one of rock music’s lesser-known treasures, a talented performer and artist who has forged his own path to create an enduring career and a catalog of recordings that would be the pride of any musician.

The Reverend has long been a fan of Nile’s music and songwriting skills, from his 1980 self-titled debut and the following year’s Golden Down to more recent work like 2009’s House of A Thousand Guitars or 2016’s World War Willie (and a lot of great records in between). As I’m also a big Bob Dylan fan (no surprise), I’ve been particular enamored as of late by Nile’s recently-released tribute album Positively Bob: Willie Nile Sings Bob Dylan.

Nile provides the ten-song collection of vintage Bob with his own reverent but unique spin on the songs, making for an exhilarating and entertaining listen. I thought it would be interesting to get a little behind-the-scenes info on Positively Bob, and Nile was gracious enough to answer a few questions by email for this Q5 interview, providing answers that are as intelligent and enlightening as his music usually is. You can check out the Reverend’s review of Positively Bob here.     

Q1. What does Bob Dylan mean to you as an artist and as a fan?

I was a teenager in the ‘60s into all kinds of rock and roll and was knocked out by Bob’s music.  Nobody was writing songs like he did. They were interesting, funny, poignant, mystical, passionate, compassionate, sarcastic, idealistic, realistic, surrealistic. There was nothing remotely like it on the radio. It was really inspiring. He was one of a kind and single-handedly changed the conversation completely. He raised the bar for everyone, artists and listeners alike.

These songs opened up a lot of doors for me, and for a whole generation of kids. Discovering Dylan’s songs in the ‘60s was incredibly liberating; it made me realize that there were no limitations or walls that could not be scaled or knocked down. I started reading the poetry of the Beats, Walt Whitman, Rimbaud, and it was off to the races from there.

Q2. Considering the depth of the Dylan songbook, how did you choose the songs to include on Positively Bob?

When I got the invitation to sing four Dylan songs at a Bob 75th birthday concert in NYC last year I stayed up late one night and just looked at all the songs in his catalog. I wanted to see if there were some songs I could pull off that would be fun to play live. I went by feel and instinct. I grabbed my guitar and went through his song list and tried a few of them that I thought might work in concert and knocked out the arrangements pretty quickly. I didn’t want to force anything. If a song didn’t come together right away, I moved on to something else. They were such a blast to play live I thought it would be fun to do an album of Bob songs. They’re still so relevant and need to be heard. I just wanted to do them justice and bring some good energy in a respectful way.

Q3. What is your favorite Dylan album and why?

That’s a tough one because there’s a lot of great ones. Probably Blonde On Blonde. There are so many great songs on it, including 9 or 10 stone cold classics. There’s humor, sarcasm, beauty, depth, love, sorrow, madness, edge, you name it, it’s there, and it ends with the stunning “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.” It’s the voice of a true poet and seeker at the top of his game, and it has that great mercury sound he spoke of. I love the live feel and excitement of the performances. It sounds so real and alive. It’s a high water mark in the history of music.

Q4. What's the hardest aspect of interpreting Dylan's songs?

The songs mean so much to me and after all these years of living they felt like old friends coming around to share some wine and talk about the world. It all happened very naturally in the studio so it wasn’t that hard. We didn’t rehearse. I just played a tape of the arrangement of each song I had recorded on my phone to the band and everybody brought their experience and appreciation of the songs to the table. We’d listen once in the control room, talk a little bit, and go into the studio and play our hearts out. 90% of it was all done in two days. We didn’t labor over it. Most of it is live. It was a labor of love I guess you’d say. If I’d had any doubts I wouldn’t have made the album. I think the key was in picking the right songs so maybe that was the hardest part. Once that was done it all just kind of fell into place.

I think the tallest mountain to climb was attempting “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” It’s such a masterpiece and more relevant today than ever. I wanted to do it justice. My first thought was what if we approached it like “Bolero?” There’s so much power in the lyric and in the melody. There’s nothing like it on radio today. When we cut it I just took a deep breath and went for it. The band killed it and I just gave it all I had. I was pleasantly surprised listening back to it. And to think he was only 21 when he wrote it! Way to go Bob!

Q5. Much of Dylan's music displays a blues influence, as do many of your songs. Will we ever see a Willie Nile blues album and, if so, what shape would it take?

I recorded a blues song on my World War Willie album last year, a song called “Citibank Nile.” I never thought I could pull something like that off but it sure worked out all right. I love how it came out. I don’t know that I’d do a full album of blues songs but you never know. I’m still learning and have a lot more to learn. Maybe one day I’ll get there and be able to do a full album of blues. I could call it Willie Nile Sings The Lookout World Here I Come Blues.