One Tough Town

Musically, David Olney's album One Tough Town travels backward in time. By the second track, "Sweet Poison," he has reached the rockabilly of the 1950s; by the end, on "Rainbow's End," he sounds like he's trying to re-create the hit parade of the 1920s. Especially on recent albums, Olney has investigated more basic musical styles, sometimes by employing unusual instrumentation. Here, he and co-producer Jack Irwin have brought in a banjo player (Richard Bailey), while Olney sometimes plucks a ukulele, and there are horns including clarinet, saxophone, trombone, and even tuba. Previously, with his gruff voice and gutbucket arrangements, Olney has recalled the later Tom Waits; on One Tough Town, that comparison remains valid, although one also should mention Leon Redbone as a model. In his songwriting, Olney continues to delight in imaginative explorations of historical and invented characters and situations. "Who's the Dummy Now?" is sung in the voice of a ventriloquist's dummy, who is reading the riot act to the ventriloquist, to the point of berating his romantic technique with a date (that's what you get when you don't move your lips). The title song, a sort of religious/science fiction fantasy, is sung in the voice of Jesus Christ as if Christ were a cosmic comedian touring the universe who had come to Earth to play a few shows and gotten crucified for his trouble; now he is warning a fellow entertainer to stay away because the planet is "one tough town." How does a songwriter even get an idea like that? It's a question a listener may ask more than once listening to a David Olney album, and this is another good one.