Carla Olson

Carla Olson is a singer-songwriter who works in American roots music, drawing from rockabilly, country, and blues. She formed a band under her own name, and their debut album 'Midnight Mission' came out in 1980. A few years later, the song 'Clean Cut Kid' became a sleeper hit that brought them wider attention.

Guitarist Russ Kunkel was an early collaborator, and Olson has worked with various musicians over time. Her catalog includes songs like 'Number One Is To Survive' and 'See The Light,' which reflect her lean toward straightforward, guitar-based writing. The music doesn't stick to one style, but it stays grounded in those traditional forms.

Later albums like 'Blue Willow' and 'The Way We Make a Broken Heart' showed different sides of her sound, from bluesy arrangements to more acoustic settings. Olson's work has kept a consistent focus on songcraft within the roots idiom, without much fuss or genre-hopping.