EXCLUSIVE: Premiere of Townes Van Zandt’s Previously Unheard Live Recording of ‘Illegal Cargo’ and The Steeldrivers' ‘If My Eyes Were Blind' Taken from the Forthcoming David OIney Tribute Compilation

"Anytime anyone asks me who my favorite music writers are, I say Mozart, Lightnin' Hopkins, Bob Dylan, and Dave Olney,” Townes Van Zandt once said. “Dave Olney is one of the best songwriters I've ever heard - and that’s true. I mean that from the heart.”

Like Townes, David Olney was one of America’s greatest poets and over time would become one of the forefathers of Americana. The gruff voiced storyteller was revered and loved for his raw, singular songwriting and powerful live performances and recorded more than twenty albums over his five-decade career. His songs have been covered by numerous artists including Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, Steve Earle, Del McCoury, Steve Young, Slaid Cleaves, The Wailin’ Jennys and many others.

Originally from Rhode Island, David Olney moved to Nashville in the early 1970s and fell in with a group of legendary songwriters including Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, Rodney Crowell, John Hiatt, and Steve Earle. He toured tirelessly with his rock band the X-Rays and gave a particularly memorable performance on Austin City Limits in 1982.

Today New West Records announces Can’t Steal My Fire: The Songs of David Olney to be released on October 18, 2024. The 17-track double album was Executive Produced by Gwil Owen and features new versions of David Olney songs recorded by Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle, Janis Ian, Jimmy Dale Gilmore, The McCrary Sisters, Dave Alvin, Mary Gauthier, Buddy Miller, Jim Lauderdale, The Steeldrivers, and more. The lovingly produced tribute also features the first new recording from Willis Alan Ramsey since the release of his 1972 cult classic debut album, an unreleased recording of Olney reciting his ‘Sonnet #40’ and concludes with a never-before-released live recording of the legendary Townes Van Zandt. Also included are new liner notes written by Steve Earle and David Olney’s daughter Lillian.

Forming a mutual admiration with Townes Van Zandt when Olney began his solo career, it’s fitting that the album should be announced alongside one of Van Zandt’s interpretations of a David Olney song. Fitting too that it should be a live recording, because it was on stage that both Olney and Townes would be at their tenderest and funniest and perhaps truest in many ways.

“If the law must be broken it’s the way I have chosen, it’s simply a risk I must take,” Townes Van Zandt sings in his version of Olney’s ‘Illegal Cargo.’ The song depicts a drug smuggler flying his plane across the border into Texas, like his father had before him, in the hope that it will give him and his wife, Jacinta, a new start, but that line feels like it could have been Olney singing about himself and the itinerate, fearless songwriters he counted as his friends.

“l count the minutes until I return here tomorrow,” Van Zandt sings to the audience at Cat’s Cradle in Chapel Hill, NC on March 11, 1977. “Keep a light burning for a heart that is yearning for the peace that you alone can bring.”

Listen to Townes Van Zandt’s previously unreleased live recording of David Olney’s ‘Illegal Cargo,’ captured at the Cat’s Cradle in Chapel Hill, NC on March 11, 1977 exclusively on Holler below.

Holler is also exclusively premiering The Steeldrivers performing ‘If My Eyes Were Blind today. Listen to Nashville’s finest transform the David Olney classic into a yearning harmony-soaked mountaintop bluegrass spiritual below.

Can’t Steal My Fire: The Songs of David Olney Track Listing:

1. Lucinda Williams - Deeper Well
2. Steve Earle - Sister Angelina
3. The McCrary Sisters - Voices on the Water
4. Buddy Miller - Jerusalem Tomorrow
5. The Steeldrivers - If My Eyes Were Blind
6. Willis Alan Ramsey - Women Cross the River
7. Mary Gauthier - 1917
8. R.B. Morris - Always the Stranger
9. Jimmie Dale Gilmore - If It Wasn’t For the Wind
10. Anana Kaye - Running From Love
11. Greg Brown - That’s My Story
12. David Olney - Sonnet #40
13. Afton Wolfe - Titanic
14. Dave Alvin with the Rick Holmstrom Trio - Steal My Thunder
15. Jim Lauderdale - Delta Blue
16. Janis Ian - She’s Alone Tonight
17. Townes Van Zandt - Illegal Cargo

“His craftsmanship is close to flawless… it kind of transcends craftsmanship,” Guy Clark once said about Olney and you get the feeling Guy Clark didn’t say that about many people.

Can’t Steal My Fire: The Songs of David Olney will be available across digital platforms, compact disc, and 2-LP double vinyl housed in a gatefold cover. It is available for pre-order NOW via NEW WEST RECORDS.