Victoria Williams
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Victoria Williams (born December 23, 1958) is an American singer/songwriter and musician, originally from Shreveport, Louisiana, although she has resided in Southern California throughout her musical career. She gained fame for her descriptive songwriting talent, which she has used to immerse the listener of her songs into a vivid feeling of small-town, rural Southern upbringing and life. She has the ability to detail events and characters that could (and might) be truly biographical. Her best-known songs include "Crazy Mary", and "Century Plant". Finding inspiration in nature, ("Weeds", "Century Plant," Why Look at the Moon"), everyday objects ("Shoes," "Frying Pan") and the unseen, as in "Holy Spirit". Wonder, delight and awe are the primary moods of her music.
In 1986 she worked with then husband Peter Case on his debut album, following this a year later with her own debut, Happy Come Home, produced by Anton Fier, with an accompanying 28 minute documentary by D. A. Pennebaker. In 1990 she released Swing the Statue. She also often appeared onstage and on record with the band Giant Sand. In 1993 she acted in Gus Van Sant's Even Cowgirls Get The Blues [1], who also made the video for Tarbelly and Featherfoot.
In 1993, Williams' life took a dramatic turn when she learned that she was suffering from multiple sclerosis. In 1993, an array of artists from different genres, including Pearl Jam, Lou Reed, Maria McKee, Soul Asylum, Lucinda Williams and others, joined together to record some of Williams' songs for a tribute/benefit project called Sweet Relief: A Benefit for Victoria Williams. This led to the creation of the Sweet Relief Fund, a charity that aids professional musicians (of any stature) in need of health care. That year, Williams also released a new album herself, entitled Loose. Pearl Jam had covered her song "Crazy Mary" for Sweet Relief, however, Williams performed her own version of the song, and made a video that brought her closer to public notice and gained her more of a following after it ran on MTV and Vh1 in 1994, and is still played on both cable channels.
Also that year, Williams appeared on Strong Hand of Love, a fund-raising tribute album to songwriter Mark Heard, who had died in 1992. That December she participated in a Christmas concert with Jane Siberry, Holly Cole, Mary Margaret O'Hara and Rebecca Jenkins, broadcast over CBC Radio in Canada and National Public Radio in the United States and subsequently released on CD as Count Your Blessings.
In 1995, Williams released her first live album, This Moment in Toronto With the Loose Band. Williams ended the 1990s with 1998's Musings of a Creekdipper and followed it with Water to Drink in 2000.
Her gift at breathing new life into standards, most often limited to her live concerts, was finally committed to record in 2002 on Sings Some Ol' Songs where she covers classics such as "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," "My Funny Valentine" and "Moon River".
Throughout her marriage to former Jayhawk Mark Olson, the pair regularly toured and recorded together as The Original Harmony Ridge Creekdippers, The Creekdippers, and Mark Olson and the Creekdippers, releasing a total of seven albums and one "best of" compilation. "Miss Williams' Guitar", a song on the Jayhawks' 1995 album Tomorrow the Green Grass, was written for her by Olson and bandmade Gary Louris.
In 2006, she appeared as a guest vocalist on Modern Folk and Blues Wednesday, the first solo album by Bob Forrest of Thelonious Monster.
Williams also plays in a band called The Thriftstore Allstars, a group of accomplished touring musicians who regularly play in Joshua Tree, California. The Thriftstore Allstars play what their MySpace page calls "loose drunken square dance country gone electric fantasmo." The sound at live shows is somewhat jam-band at times because of the large number of musicians on stage at once (as many as 12) and the loose way in which the music is performed. The vibe is upbeat and positive and seems centered on good friends, good music, and even good food.
In 2007 she has played numerous shows with M. Ward.
Victoria features on track 'Bottom Dollar' on Christopher Rees' album Cautionary Tales (2007).
Victoria recorded Don't Let It Bring You Down on the 1989 album The Bridge: A Tribute to Neil Young, and a cover of "The Puppy Song" for the 1995 Harry Nilsson tribute album For the Love of Harry: Everybody Sings Nilsson.
[edit] Discography
- Sings Some Ol' Songs (2002)
- Water To Drink (2000)
- Musings Of A Creek Dipper (1998)
- This Moment: In Toronto With the Loose Band (1995)
- I'll Make U Famous (1995)
- Your Heart's in Good Hands (1995)
- Legal Dope (1995)
- Loose (1994)
- Swing the Statue! (1990)
- Happy Come Home (1987)
