"Once you get beneath the big-time country crap that goes on in Nashville, there's a vibrant songwriting and just general musicianship that goes on," says no-nonsense singer-songwriter David Olney. He and guitarist Sergio Webb bring a little bit of their honest Nashville sound to Slim's tonight.

Olney says Nashville is still a good place to work because it's always easy to find good musicians to make a record with. When he made his way to Nashville back in the early '70s and joined the band the X-Rays, it was also a symbolic move toward becoming more of a pure musician.

"For me, this is where I came to grow up, basically," says Olney, now in his 60s. "Maybe not to grow up, but to officially announce myself as a musician. And over the years that means a lot, because for a long time, through the lean years, it's only your pride that really gets you through."

High-profile singers have also taken notice of Olney, including Emmylou Harris, who covered his song "Jerusalem Tomorrow."

Harris' cover was hugely gratifying for Olney, who had been in Nashville for 20 years and had only a couple of minor hits.

"It was like living proof that someone other than myself likes what I do," says Olney. "You write these songs and you think, 'No one is going to get this or be interested in it,' and to have her do one of those songs was just a huge relief to me."

In the tradition of Johnny Cash and Tom Waits, Olney has become a pioneer of the Americana music scene, which he sees as gaining momentum.

Olney performed solo for years, but he says bringing in Webb was a great move for recording and performing live.

"It was more or less, if we do this right, we can get away with it, you know, not having a bass player and a drummer, and it turned out it wasn't something we were particularly getting away with, it was a sound itself," he says. "Sergio's playing takes up such a wide sonic range, and it makes me think about my guitar playing more."

During their live set, the sound is so full, it's hard to comprehend you're listening to just two guitar players and a singer.