This came out in 2003 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
After three decades in music and more than 10 albums, you might expect a fella to slow down just a tad. Maybe coast a little. Not David Olney.
At age 54, this veteran singer-songwriter is still on top of his game and raring to go. And his dozenth (or so) release The Wheel is just the latest in a long line of albums that have earned the acclaim of his peers — Townes Van Zandt called Olney one of the best songwriters he’d ever heard — but never translated into commercial success. We doubt that’s gonna change anytime soon. This 15-cut album is a loose concept piece about wheels, motion, repetition, life, death, karma and irony, with the whiskey-voiced Olney mixing Gregorian chants and angelic rounds in between scrappy roots-rockers (Big Cadillac), clompy blues-stompers (God Shaped Hole), darkly twangy country (Chained And Bound To The Wheel) and tragic Appalachian balladry (Stonewall), lumpy gospel (Boss Don’t Shoot No Dice) and several other American sub-genres. All of which he delivers with enough passion, power and pure soul to make you see Townes wasn’t kidding.
