Very sad and very unusual but at the same time very surreal and poignant RIP David Olney
Not sure this was posted elsewhere.... A Celebration of Life for David Olney at The Belcourt Theatre, Nashville, TN (March 9, 2020) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCmZmgOhrR4 |
I was lucky. I heard David at two house concerts and then again at a local club (Eddies Attic in Decatur GA). Above all else he was a writer who just happened to use music as his way of getting his thoughts across. A story I heard more than once was about a night when feeling bored in a hotel room he found a nearby second hand book store and purchased a book on birds. By the end of the night had written a song which would be the track of a new album entitled Migration. David Olney - Birds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFsGRxMRYbg But getting back to the "writing" part of this story, after one concert an audience member who was a "birder" asked David why he had made mistakes including names of birds which don't exist. I can still see David shaking his head when explaining he used words that are beautiful as lyrics without regard to being correct in ornithology. Maybe there should be a rule that songwriters must obey the strict species names applied to nature. Until that happens the song Birds will always be something I enjoy listening to. David's death this last weekend was reported by major new outlets probably because he passed away peacefully while performing on stage. That may have been unusual but it was his ability in his songwriting craft that earned him an obit in the New York Times. Here's one more song from David that will offer proof that he belonged being celebrated in the Times. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-d5L93QHcA David Olney Homepage https://davidolney.com/home https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLb28p4hlqw |
