Sean La Roche has worked in legitimate theater and the popular music business since 1958. He says, “I’ve never heard or seen anything like it. I was fortunate to attend the first performance of The Texas Song Theater in a packed showcase room at The Northeast Regional Folk Alliance in Monticello, New York.

“If ever a performance was more than the sum of its parts, this was it. People coming to see Denice Franke, David Olney, and Eric Taylor because of their individual reputations as poets and musicians were totally surprised by the energy and deep soulfulness projected from these three.

“When Olney started talk/singing about the road towards Nashville and suddenly Franke adds her voice over his and Taylor comes under them with words and music about God-only-knows what dusty trip from Montgomery to Memphis...........a gasp from the crowd could be heard from front row to hallway.............It was the ultimate real deal.

“If The Texas Song Theater comes your way.......do yourself a favor.....go see it, go hear it. There’s nothing like it.”

Dalis Allen
Producer, Kerrville Folk Festival
"November 2002. I will forever be able to say I was there for the first performance, the beginning.....What a delight to walk into a room full of expectant, palpable energy and see performance art at it's finest. It was a stretch, a risk even, to take three artists that are strong as solo performers and intertwine their material to create theater. It worked beautifully. My advice, make it a part of your life experience."

Pete & Maura Kennedy
The Kennedys
"As the house lights fade, so do your surroundings, and you enter into a smoky, meditative Lone Star State. At times you feel like you're riding shotgun in Robert Mitchum's "Thunder Road" hot rod. Other times, you feel like you're sitting at the Driskill bar between Townes and Newbury while they trade tall tales. But comparisons only serve as mile markers on this dark backroad. Nobody from McMurtry to Bogdanovich has evoked the loneliness and dying-ember passion of Texas's two-lane highways and roadhouses better than these three time-tested troubadours."

Lucy Bonnington
Plowshares Coffeehouse in Phoenixville, PA
“Call it Texas Song Theater, call it art, call it brilliant. David Olney, Denice Franke, and Eric Taylor are all gifted performers that draw on their common roots and weave a complex tapestry of story telling and exquisite musicianship. Prepare to be moved to tears, enlightened, and finally grateful for the commitment of these three amazing musicians to a new vision of what ‘folk music’ can look like.”

Richard Cuccaro
Acoustic Live in New York City
“I was never more aware of my ‘student’ status when I stepped into Sean La Roche’s packed guerrilla showcase room to witness the experimental first-time performance of a ‘theater’ piece put on by Eric Taylor, David Olney, and Denice Franke. I had heard of these artists, but had never seen them. I was blown away by their set. They layered sung and spoken pieces over each other, exploring, among other things, the concepts of isolation and spirituality.”

Mike Joyce
The Washington Post
“Instead of taking turns randomly displaying their wares, the three musicians used original songs and traditional refrains to create an intriguing cycle. Punctuating the quietly harmonized tunes, played on acoustic guitars, was a series of spoken passages--brief dramatic vignettes that alluded to small-town encounters or Jack Kerouac’s teeming prose or personal misadventures recounted without regret.

“Olney’s ‘Dillinger’ and Taylor’s ‘Hemingway’s Shotgun,’ both refreshingly unsentimental, ranked among the evening’s highlights, as did (Taylor’s) ‘Bread and Wine,’ a view of the Last Supper as seen through the eyes of Christ. As for Franke, she sang several beautifully written, introspective ballads and conveyed the deepest kind of heartache.”