I could have gone to watch Oliver Anthony in Savannah, Georgia, where I currently live, but when I saw that he had also booked a show in the nearby town of Albany, I couldn’t resist purchasing my ticket for that venue and launching an impromptu road trip 200-something miles southwest to see this unique singer/songwriter perform in what struck me as a more apropos environment.
Savannah, after all, is a world-known seaside tourist destination, with a quaint old town section, filled with picturesque squares, a few cobblestone streets, a riverwalk filled with high-end restaurants and shops, and loads of expensive hotels. Albany, by contrast, is a humble, blighted, largely poverty-stricken town, with few tourist attractions to speak of.
Albany, not Savannah, thus lays a far greater claim to being true “Oliver Anthony” country. And I wanted to see Anthony in his element, before his people, if you will.
Of course, the hilly, woodsy, abundantly shady section of Virginia that Anthony calls home (in a town some 65 miles south of Richmond, whose point of reference to Washington DC became the clever refrain to Anthony’s most famous song, the scathing populist anthem “Rich Men North of Richmond”) is a far cry, topography- and climate-wise, from the flat, scrubby, parched South Georgia terrain where Albany, Georgia is located. But Anthony’s audience isn’t defined by geography. Rather, much of his base seems to be people who resonate to his aesthetic and to the defiantly old-timey values expressed in his music. Often, this equates to (but is by no means limited to) smalltown working-class white folks, many of whom, it must be admitted, fit the profile of “typical” country music fans.
Anthony, however is hardly a typical country music performer. For one thing, his songs are more stripped-down and unadorned, with little in the way of studio production, in a manner that brings to mind Johnny Cash’s 1994 “American Recordings” album. His subject matter is frequently grim, even dark. “Cobwebs and Cocaine” begins with this shocking verse:
My poor old wife grabbed a shot box of lead
Ran a four-ten slug plum through her head
She said she'd rather be living in hell than with me instead
And I can't find fault in that
Addictions are a frequent theme, even when the overall mood of the song is lighter:
Well, the liquor and the bowl, they've been saving my soul
From the pain that the world's put on me
Lord, I know that upstairs there's an old man who cares
And one day he'll set me free
I'll go on a whim, start writing the hymn
The sound so sweet
But the troubles and the sin of the world that we're in
Knock me back off my feet
The working-man’s blues are only partly mitigated through the use of substances, but a more prominent critique is of the ruling class, who are castigated for having depraved appetites and for their callous disregard for the poor.
Well my head's been hurting, my back's been aching
The water's drying up, there's a war in the making
People eating bugs 'cause they won't eat bacon
Doggonit
There's needles in the street, folks hardly surviving
On sidewalks next to highways full of cars self-driving
The poor keep hurting and the rich keep thriving
Doggonit
Now peoples crying about burning coal, but not the poor souls whose a digging it
I reckon there's been a many good man in the grave trying to keep our houses lit
From down in the oil fields, and the pipelines, and the linemen, and the coal mines
So we can sit at home and plug in our new fangled bullshit
And Republicans and Democrats, I swear they're all just full of crap
I've ain't never seen a good city-slicking bureaucrat
Open references to globalist ghouls like the WEF (“eat the bugs”) and digs at Jeffrey Epstein and his powerful, perverted friends (“I wish politicians would care about miners/And not just minors on an island somewhere”) show up regularly in Anthony’s lyrics. Typical country music— the fare you’d normally hear on the radio—seldom venture into such territory. Some songs, like Jason Aldean’s “Try That In a Small Town,” obliquely affirm country values, and court controversy by criticizing urban rioters and looters, but Anthony’s critique of the system is far more bold.
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Oliver Anthony broke into mega-stardom last August, when “Rich Men North of Richmond” (the one with that searing Epstein Island “shout-out”) suddenly became a huge hit, racing to the top of the country charts on Spotify, Apple Music, and other online outlets. Since becoming a celebrity, Anthony has refused to join any major label. At his show, he tells the crowd, “I’m always gonna be independent, so I can always say whatever the hell I want!”
It is one of many fiery lines that draws cheers from the audience, who largely fill the sizable Albany Civic Center. Yet Anthony’s speaking style is disarmingly quiet, unassuming, even self-effacing. (Quite jarring, considering its marked contrast to his weathered, gruff, world-weary singing voice, which, fascinatingly, bears a certain resemblance at times to Kurt Cobain’s distinctive glottis-lacerating vocals.) Anthony and his two bandmates (one on standup bass, the other on lead guitar) generally keep the evening’s vibes light and fun. On two occasions, they take a break to fold up their completed setlist sheets and launch them as paper airplanes into the audience. They also take requests from the crowd, playing “In Color” by Jamey Johnson and even Lynyrd Skynerd’s “Freebird”(!).
There are moments during the performance, however, where this full-bearded ginger Virginian's deeply-felt convictions shine through with unmistakable intensity. The first is when he takes the stage and reads an Old Testament passage concerning God's punishment of the wicked.
The reading is measured in tone, yet it hits all of its dramatic marks with an understated brio. There is no doubt who Anthony has in mind when he mentions the “wicked.” The crowd hoot and holler at the thought of the criminal elites catching hell from a wrathful God.
It goes without saying that, when Anthony dryly asks the audience, “Y’all want to hear a song about some spineless pedophile politicians?” before launching into “Rich Men…” it brings the house down. Everyone sings along to the memorable lyrics of the angry anthem. Afterwards, Anthony tells the audience, in the same soft-but-firm tone, “They’ll tell us a lot of bullshit on TV, opinion polls and what-not, but the truth is, and I know this for a fact.. there’s a lot more of us than there are of them.”
Again, the crowd goes wild. But one doesn’t get the impression that Anthony is engaging in rabble-rousing; instead, he is connecting with his fans, with whom he clearly feels a painfully earnest affinity. Just eight months ago, after all, he was an unknown musician “working overtime hours for bullshit pay” in order to scrape by, with a wife and three children to provide for. Now he’s on a worldwide tour, spreading the ragamuffin Gospel of the working man to grateful countryfolk who speak his language.
Andy Nowicki is the author of several books, most recently The Insurrectionist, Muze, and Love and Hidden Agendas, as well as the just-published The Rule of Wrath. Visit his YouTube channel.
Well written Mister Nowicki
Maybe it's the schizo in me, but his declaration last year that "diversity is our strength" really soured me on the guy. I think he's a psyop, personally, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong.