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Carla Olson - Triple Musical Threat |
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The seeds for Americana Railroad, the album, began to take
root in the early 1990s with Carla Olson, Gene Clark and Saul Davis,
Carla’s manager and husband.
Carla Olson says, “It was a nice idea to be a vehicle for a couple of
Gene’s songs, one of which is “I Remember the Railroad,” and not many
people know about it unless you are a big Gene Clark fan. Also, his
songs, “Train Leaves Here This Morning,” and “Kansas City Southern.”
Gene was a railroad guy. I remember buying a package of shirt patches
that they used to sell in train stations and train shops and I bought
four or five of the Rock Island Line. I gave a couple of them to Gene
when we were first hanging around together in the eighties. He said this
is so cool I am going to sew them on my jean jacket as soon as I can. He
was a huge reason why we tried to cobble this together. The other song
was The Long Ryders’ song that Stephen McCarthy wrote called “Here Comes
That Train Again.”
Those were the songs that started the ball rolling.”
We wondered what attracted Carla Olson to create a concept album around
the theme trains.
She explains, “I am a child of the fifties who walked home with her
buddies, while listening to The Beatles, the Stones and the different
British Invasion acts. Also, with being from Texas as I am there was a
lot of Rockabilly, Country and what we called Country music that rocked.
I suppose that makes for a child who was partially fascinated with
(wondering) where the trains were going. Why are they all writing about
trains? Why are they all singing about trains?
When you are a kid and you are in a small town and at that point Austin
was a small town, trains got you out of town. They got you somewhere
besides your own backyard. You could walk along the train tracks and you
could imagine. If you were an unhappy child or an unhappy adult, trains
took you away from that unhappiness. I was always fascinated by travel
and maps, not to just get away, but to go somewhere exotic.
I always find travel makes me feel more creative and I like writing
about what I am seeing.
My husband and manager Saul Davis grew up in Chicago. The trains were
everywhere and the elevated trains went around Chicago and the
metropolitan area. The railroads all came through Chicago, so he was
fascinated with trains as well.
Meeting Gene Clark, I bought The Byrds first album from the Columbia
Record Club when it came out in (the sixties). It was an album that was
part of my childhood. Meeting Gene Clark and singing and playing with
him was like a dream come true.
When I came to LA it was not an easy decision to leave Austin. When I
met my partner Kathy Valentine who is quite a bit younger than me, we
started playing together just out of the need to have someone to pal
around with and be part of the scene. She had already been to Europe and
I had already been to Europe. When I came back from Europe there was
this friend who wanted to hang out and play with me.
We put a band together and it was a flip of the coin when we decided we
were going to get out of Austin. We flipped a quarter and if it was
heads it was going to be New York and if it was tails it was going to be
LA. It landed on tails and we came to LA. That is part of the
fascination with travel and being somewhere foreign and different. You
can get out of your neighborhood where everybody knows you. You really
can’t grow as an artist, musician or actor in your backyard if you want
to put on some kind of a show. When you put on a show you become
something other than what you were when you were in your own
neighborhood. That is the growth. Coming to California wasn’t oh wow it
is Hollywood. It was let’s get out of here and go find our record deal.
Let’s write our songs.
The idea of travel was always attractive to me. I spent quite a bit of
time in Europe on trains. I love the aspect of being able to get on a
train instead of an airplane. You can open up a book and look out the
window.”
The album Americana Railroad opens with the song “Here Comes That Train
Again,” featuring Carla Olson and Stephen McCarthy.
“Stephen wrote “Here Comes That Train Again.” This album wasn’t really
meant to be originals, it was meant to be great train songs. He wrote
this song while he was on the way to the studio to record it with us.
“Southwest Chief,” is by Dave Alvin. He used to do these train
tours when he would go from Chicago to LA and back with the musicians.
When the train stopped at stations they would play for people. The idea
behind that song is the romance of the train.
Kai Clark, Gene’s son recorded “Train Leaves Here This Morning.” It was
a song that the Eagles recorded and then Gene recorded it as well. Rocky
Burnette is on “Mystery Train,” well his dad was Johnny Burnette
(“You’re Sixteen”) from the Rock and Roll Trio. Rocky lives here outside
of LA in the desert. He recorded “Mystery Train,” with our band and
Mickey Raphael who plays harmonica with Willie Nelson.
Some of these songs are about train travel, some are about trains, and
some are metaphors for trains and how they represent more abstract
ideas,” she says.
“Mystery Train,” was written by Junior Parker and recorded by Elvis.
James Inveldt joins Rocky Burnette on the song. It has previously been
recorded by a galaxy of stars including Woody Guthrie, Eric Clapton,
Ricky Nelson, The Doors, Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, Bruce Springsteen,
Johnny Cash and Led Zeppelin.
Some of these songs have a personal connection such as “Steel Pony
Blues,” written by Dom Flemons in memory of Deadwood Dick, whose real
name was Nat Love. The story of Nat Love is quite remarkable as he was
born into slavery, as a child learned to read and write, survived the
Civil War, was a cattle drover for twenty years, before becoming a
pullman porter on trains for the next fifteen years.
There is even a song originally recorded and written by a real train
brakeman, Jimmie Rogers and it captures the vintage sound of the 1920s.
Carla Olson
explains, “That
song is “Waiting For a Train.”
That’s Paul Burch and Fats Kaplin and that was selected by the
label that put this out B & G. They asked if it could be used for the
record. There were several tracks that were brought to me by the label.
I started out with were eleven tracks that were selected, recorded and
produced by me. The other tracks were brought to me by the record label
that wanted to put this out and they are wonderful.
The John Fogerty track “City of New Orleans,” was one he wanted to put
out on an album. During the COVID lockdown he recorded it with his kids.
After it was done Mickey Raphael added some harmonica to it, because I
thought it needed a little train push. “City of New Orleans,” (was
written) by Steve Goodman. Some of these songs have a story other than
my story. The songs that I brought to the table were songs that I had
been carrying around for a while.
“There was a band from Los Angeles called Rank and File, which (became)
the evolution of a Seminole Punk into a Cow Punk. The two brothers Chip
and Tony Kinman wrote “The Conductor Wore Black.” That song is a
metaphor for what happens if you are a bad person. You don’t go to
heaven (we both laugh). “This Train,” which Peter Case recorded
is what we would call a spiritual. Gary Myrick did a version of “Train
Kept-A-Rollin’,” which was a Yardbirds cover. He did it in the Rock and
Roll tradition like The Yardbirds.
For some of these songs I was not in the studio with them to know what
their intention was. Alice Howe did “500 Miles,” and I used to do that
as a Folk song when I was first starting to play. I got that from Joan
Baez and Peter, Paul and Mary. I would play it for friends.
(The album) is a combination of real train experience songs and metaphor
songs.
The music reaches new heights when Carla Olson and Brian Ray team up for
“Whiskey Train,” on which she sings and Ray, who plays in Paul
McCartney’s band plays the guitars. Brian Ray joins Carla Olson singing
on the chorus.
Talking about “Whiskey Train, Carla Olson says, “It is a Rocking
and Rollicking song. I knew that song when it first came out, because I
was a big Procol Harum fan. It never dawned on me (before) that it was a
song about alcoholism. The lyric is “I ain’t gonna’ ride that whiskey
train no more / I’m gonna pour the bottle down the drain.” We did a
video for that too and it will hit social media somewhere around the
beginning of June. There are a lot of trains in (the video).”
Trains were a big part of your childhood?
“When there was no urgency to get home from school, we would get into
the creek, take off our shoes and put our feet into the cold water. We
also used to hike down the railroad track where the trestle was and we
would put our ears down to see if the train was coming (she relives
the moment). We would put our ears down and we would either feel the
vibration or we wouldn’t feel anything. If we felt the vibration, we
knew we had to get our butts off of that trestle. It was thirty feet
down to jump into the creek. It was a dangerous game that we played
hanging around the train trestles. Sometimes we would put a penny on the
track and get it smashed and we would trade it with our friends. It was
a big deal being around the trains. If there was a conductor and they
slowed down at a crossing he would wave to us. That was really cool.
I was a tomboy who always wore shorts under my skirts and I wore penny
loafers without socks. My mother used to say, we were the boy girls.
Great memories come rushing back whenever I hear or see trains. I
remember when I saw A Hard Day’s Night (The Beatles film) and I
must have sat through five features of it, I always loved how it started
with (The Beatles) on the train. They popped in an out of the windows
and looked into each compartment to see who was there,” she says.
Growing up in central Texas Carla Olson listened to music by The Moving
Sidewalks the forerunner of ZZ Top, songs by Canada’s Gordon Lightfoot,
the Rolling Stones and…well we will let Carla tell the story.
“The reason you hear and see such a variety of music in my background,
as a songwriter (and musician) and producer is because at that time from
’62 to ’66 in Texas we had Pop radio. We didn’t have FM radio and they
didn’t play album tracks. They played double sided singles of The
Beatles, the Stones, Dave Clark Five and Herman’s Hermits. They played
both sides of the singles, because if the A side was really a big hit,
then after a couple of weeks, they would flip the record over and start
playing the B side. At these Pop stations they had to please everybody,
so you got everything from the Tijuana Brass, The Beatles, the Rolling
Stones, Petula Clark and local R & B acts would get on the radio there
if they were friends of the Disc Jockey. You would get the flavor of the
Blues bands, (such as) Bobby “Blue” Bland. We had a lot of people like
Tony Joe White who came through. You had this tremendous variety of
styles. On my album Have Harmony, Will Travel Volume 1, which
came out a number of years ago I wrote the liner notes, explaining why I
loved these songs and why I wanted to record them, because the radio
station KNOW in Austin played everything from Love Is Blue, by Paul
Mauriat to The Zombies. You also had a lot of Mexican music, which was
native to Texas. It mixed what I called Mexican Polka music with German
Polka music in with the Rock and Roll. To get on Pop radio was a big
deal. That is probably why my musical pedigree has such a wide variety
of music. I also grew up on Classical music because my father was a
Classical pianist. I took music theory from the time I was five. Both of
my parents were very supportive in helping me to get educated in music.
I bought my first guitar with green stamps. I was twelve or thirteen
years old. If you bought groceries or gas or dry goods or if you were
buying things from the food store you would get green stamps. We had a
ranch, so there was always grain or hay coming in and out. For a certain
amount of dollars spent you got these redemption stamps. You pasted them
in a book and when you got enough of them, they would give you a little
pamphlet of the things you could buy. A lot of kids wanted a BB gun or a
bow and arrow or something like that, but I wanted a guitar. I was able
to put together enough green stamps that I was able to get a Teye
acoustic guitar.
When I bought an electric guitar, I started taking some lessons from
players around town and people who were working musicians in bands. I
got a pretty good musical education. When I met Kathy Valentine, she was
playing Chuck Berry type Rock and Roll. That is when we decided we were
going to get some gigs and we played around town. It was kind of crazy,
but we did it.
When I met Kathy, I was in my mid-twenties and I had already been in
bands. When I got out of high school, I traveled around Europe for six
to eight months and when I got back, I started a band with a bunch of
other guys. Then I bought my Marshall stack. The dynamic started to
change, because back then there weren’t really amplifiers that you could
play through the PA. You played your amplifier and then your PA was
separate. You had to have a big amplifier if you want to play big enough
places to have any kind of an impact. I decided to change directions and
play some Rock and Roll. We were totally into The Yardbirds, Jeff Beck
and Jimmy Page. Then I discovered John Mayall & the Blues Breakers, with
Clapton and Peter Green. Before I met Kathy I was more into a Rock and
Rolls Blues kind of scene. It is funny how life works out and you end up
meeting your heroes and playing with your heroes. I was very fortunate
that happened to me” she says.
Kathy Valentine and Carla Olson formed The Violators (band) in Texas and
later decided to move to Los Angeles after a coin flip helped them make
the decision whether to move to LA or New York City. After moving to the
west coast Olson and Valentine formed the band The Textones with David
Provost (guitar and bass) and Markus Cuff (drummer), both of whom they
met in Los Angeles. Later Valentine would join The Go-Go’s.
Our conversation takes a new direction when Carla Olson asks, “Have you
heard my album Ladies Sing Lightfoot, which I produced? It is all
women singing Gordon Lightfoot songs. All of those songs were about
women. That and the train album are concept albums that we have been
talking about doing for years. When COVID hit it slowed us down a bit,
but we had already recorded the train album and the Ladies Sing
Lightfoot album and they were ready to be put out, but the labels
put the kybosh on it, because of COVID. We had to wait to get them
pressed and then put them out.
Susan Cowsill sings “If You Could Read My Mind.” Susan’s version will
make you weep. It is just acoustic guitar, vocals and cello.
One of the last gigs that I did before COVID lockdown was with Susan and
it was a benefit for autism here in LA. Every year they pick a theme and
that year it was the Love and Spoonful. John Sebastian and three members
of the band were together for that show. Susan was on the bill, I was on
the bill and I sang “Stories We Could Tell,” with John. That was
February 29, 2020. It was a leap year. Then March 15 was when LA locked
down.
The Textones do “Early Morning Rain,” which is another one of my
favorites of Gordon’s songs.
Most of the band members who played on that album also played on the
railroad album, because I was doing them at the same time.
I met Gordon Lightfoot several times. Every time he came to town, I
would go see him play. One time we went to what we would call an old
movie theater and they had turned it into a concert hall. The next time
he came to town I told him I was working on this album Ladies Sing
Lightfoot and that was in 2019. He was very sweet.”
Carla Olson talks about the role social media plays for artists, “Nobody
would know about “I Can See For Miles,” (covering The Who) single that I
recorded for the Teen Cancer America charity if it wasn’t for social
media. There is a learning curve to it and things change dramatically
all of the time. I am just grateful it came along at a time when it
could be helpful. Also, I have met some really, really cool people on
social media. What would we have done during COVID? I couldn’t perform
anywhere and I couldn’t meet my friends anywhere. You couldn’t even meet
your family anywhere. I haven’t played a proper gig since February of
2020, at least not a place with a decent sound system.
As for her single “I Can See For Miles,” she says, “It was recorded at
the same time as I recorded Ladies Sing Lightfoot and the
Americana Railroad album. My husband (Saul Davis) is involved with
Teen Cancer America. When you go into hospitals in England there are
actual wards that are setup for that age group. Their cancer is
accelerated, because quite often they are going through puberty and any
number of issues that can cause the cancer to grow faster. Roger Daltrey
decided to do payback for all the kids that supported The Who when they
were coming up. It was the kids who bought the records and made them
famous. He just wanted to give something back to teens. He started this
charity, Teenage Cancer Trust in the U.K. They put these wards in dozens
and dozens of hospitals in the U.K. that are specifically designed to
nurture teenagers. In America they tried to do the same thing here.
Trying to raise money for that is difficult, because people don’t
understand what it is. My husband Saul and I came up with the idea Women
Sing The Who and to do it as a download where the money would go to the
charity. The idea wasn’t for me, it was to get somebody bigger like a
Joan Jett or Adele that would really pull the numbers in, but they
didn’t seem to be able to pull those people together.
I recorded “I Can See For Miles,” in 2019 and I showed it to the charity
and I said this what it sounds like with a woman singing “I Can See For
Miles.” We let it sit in the can and didn’t do anything with it until
the last two or three months, then we set let’s just put it out. We will
tag it Teen Cancer America and any money that comes in like that we will
send to them.
I have received some great feedback about it. If we get women who have
more fans than I do to record some more songs… It is all over on radio.
It took off like wildfire. Who knew? Radio stations with what they now
are, it is all over the world. It was on Bandcamp only for the first two
weeks and now it is everywhere, Deezer, Tidal, Amazon and all those
places and you can actually buy it now.”
There is so much more to Carla Olson’s life, story and music and we
could have written a lot more, and talked for another hour or so, but we
will stop here.
You have three new musical choices to make from Carla Olson and it will
be difficult for you to choose one, so we suggest you invest in all
three, Americana Railroad, Ladies Sing Lightfoot and the single “I Can
See For Miles,” in support of Teen Cancer America.
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It
is rare for an artist / musician / producer to have three almost
simultaneous releases and even more rare to have those three be simply
outstanding, while being considerably different and yet that is exactly
what Carla Olson has accomplished this spring with first her album
Americana Railroad, secondly with her cover of The Who’s song “I Can See
For Miles,” with proceeds going to Teen Cancer America. The find project
is a beautiful collection of Gordon Lightfoot songs, on an album titled
Ladies Sing Lightfoot, featuring artists such as The Kennedys, Natalie
Noone, The Textones, Susan Cowsill, IIsey Juber, and Carla Olson sings
the closing song, “Ringneck Loon.” 
The
records I listened to and tried to learn how to play from them were ones
like The Ventures “Walk Don’t Run,” “Wipeout,” “Pipeline,” and very,
very soon after that I discovered I wanted to play an electric guitar. I
swapped my acoustic, because my dad thought I was getting good enough,
so he bought me a nice acoustic guitar. I couldn’t play power chords on
it or Rock and Roll on it. I could play Folk music. It was great though
and it got me off the ground.