ALBUM REVIEW: Charlie Overbey, With Friends, Shapes His Own Sound on ‘In Good Company’

Charlie Overbey has had a fistful of labels hung on him over his career: Cowpunker, rocker, outlaw countryman, Americanan, and even hatmaker. But Overbey opens his latest, In Good Company, with “Punk Rock Spy,” containing his own descriptor: “The punk rock spy in the house of the honky tonk heaven.”

Charlie Overbey (photo by Mike Dunn)

Overbey gets down to business right away, confessing that Johnny Cash saved his soul at an early age, but adding a disclaimer in the chorus: “I got a punk rock heart but the punk and the honky go together.” He proceeds to make that point throughout the album. The attitude is definitely punk, but nailing down the sound is a bit more complicated. Blues-harp wails rub shoulders with honky-tonk piano cascades punched up with Stonesy-guitar riffs. But there are no pileups; traffic flows smoothly as Overbey careens down the highway.

“Champagne Cocaine Cadillacs and Cash” puts Overbey smack dab in the middle of outlaw country territory, echoes of Waylon and Willie bouncing off the walls but a little darker, a little more explicit about wrestling with those demons, with a glimmer of Dwight Yoakam hanging out in the framework. When an old flame shows up on his doorstep, Overbey, with support from Marcus King and Jaime Wyatt, wastes no time in telling her the flame burned out a long time ago:

I’ll say a prayer for you but I gotta go
I moved on a long time ago
I’ve been livin’ I’ve been lovin’ I’ve been hanging ’round here long enough to know
I gave you everything I had girl and you put it all up your nose

Overbey conjures up Springsteen for “The Innocence,” with Springsteen sideman Nils Lofgren providing Boss tones for a reflection on the glory days of high school that fizzled out far too quickly: “That was the startin’ / of the endin’ / of the magic of pretendin’.”

Duane Betts steps in on guitar for “Life of Rock and Roll,” a jangly, Southern rock-flavored ode to those who departed too soon: “Died before they got to even begin / And I could have been with ’em /

But the rhythm handed me some good luck,” Overbey confesses, sounding like Bob Seger fronting Lynyrd Skynyrd.

With material like this, Overbey’s not gonna be bumped out of the musical spotlight any time soon. But he’s got a pretty good sideline going as well. That hatmaker label applies to his own Lone Hawk Hats, handcrafted, repurposed hat shells from the 1920s to the ’70s that Overbey sculpts by hand and markets as works of art that boast Sheryl Crow, Foo Fighters members, and Lainey Wilson as proud wearers.

Charlie Overbey’s In Good Company is out July 26 on Lone Hawk Records.