INTERVIEW: VICTORIA WILLIAMS+ |+P A G E+2+O F+2

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Williams also found herself unhappy with the rigors of being on a major label. "I'd started out as an improviser, and all of a sudden I was being told I had to play the same songs over and over," she says. "By the time I'd finished touring for 'Happy Come Home,' I felt brain dead." The relationship with Geffen was ultimately dissolved and Williams took off for a European tour with her friends Giant Sand as their lead and rhythm guitarist. "It was really good for me to be back in the improvisational mode," she says. "Halfway through the tour I finally got a handle on what the songs were, what the chords were, what anything was." In 1990, Williams released her second album, "Swing the Statue!" on Rough Trade, but the company went belly up shortly thereafter (the record was rereleased by Mammoth in 1994). It was in 1991, when she began touring with Neil Young, that she noticed something wrong with her health. When she tried to play guitar, her hands began "flopping around." She was diagnosed with MS in 1992. When the uninsured Williams had racked up more than $20,000 worth of unpaid medical bills, friends and fans within the music industry responded with benefit concerts and "Sweet Relief," a compilation album of artists performing her songs that featured, among others, Pearl Jam, Lucinda Williams, the Jayhawks and Lou Reed. In turn, Williams created a foundation to help other uninsured musicians with debilitating illnesses, which has since given more than $350,000 to those in need. "My dream for that fund is for musicians in every city to do one concert a year that they donate to 'Sweet Relief,'" she says. "Then they can feel like it's there for them if they need it. Musicians have to stick together, just like the plumbers union."

Williams is open in discussing her bouts with MS, which is not curable. "It's a teacher, this whole trip," she says. "I've learned to laugh at myself a lot, instead of hitting myself in the head so much over the malfunctioning of the mortal coil." It's nearly impossible not to mention MS, given the impact it has on her music. "Musings" is steeped in the calmness Williams has sought in Joshua Tree, avoiding the stress that aggravates her condition. "The changes I'm going through in my life are in the music, I'm sure," she says. Indeed, the theme of resting, even forcibly, comes up repeatedly on "Musings": "Learn to rest/soon we'll fly," she sings on "Grandpa in the Cornpatch."

"That song could be about a grandpa not wanting to grow old, or it could be someone struck down in the middle of their life," she explains. "It's hard to get a person to rest who's not inclined to rest. But then your body just won't go. We have to experience so much, and resting is part of it." In "Train Song (Demise of the Caboose)," Williams waits at a railroad crossing as a train passes by, only to be disappointed that the caboose that delighted her as a child has disappeared. "It's a complaining song," she says. "There's no more finality in this life, it's all rush-rush-rush with no payoff."

Her search for a stress-free life notwithstanding, Williams managed to get some touring done in 1997, in between sessions for "Musings." During her road trip, she hooked up with the Lilith Fair for 10 shows. I ask her if she feels it accomplished what it had set out to, and she replies emphatically. "It couldn't help but do that," she says. "I loved it -- women out together instead of being pitted against each other, which has been a problem in the past. I don't think it stems from the women, necessarily, but more from the industry itself. My very first development deal was on EMI, but they decided not to go with me because they already had Kate Bush, and I'm nothing like her. Now, you don't hear that kind of thing about men.

"The spirit of Lilith was really gentle and wonderful," Williams recalls. "It's like, 'Hey! I'm a soothing balm of Gilead,'" she laughs. Backing up Williams at Lilith were the Creekdippers, comprised of husband Mark Olson and friend Raz. Once half of the formidable songwriting team behind the Jayhawks, Olson released his own CD last year and has been selling it through mail order only (Emancipated Mule, P.O. Box 342, Joshua Tree, CA 92252). "The Original Harmony Ridge Creekdippers" features live recordings of Olson, Williams and Raz of the back porch variety, and has received rave reviews despite the fact that most avaricious music writers are incensed by actually having to pay for something. Though she is reluctant to speak for Olson, Williams admits, "Mark had had it with the business. He just wants to put out his music." I ask her if she finds it odd that her husband has completely opted out of the industry while she remains attached to a major label. "No," she says thoughtfully, "Mark made me realize that I don't have the energy to do everything myself right now. I might have to someday, though; you never know with the ups and downs of the music business."

Considering the ups and downs of Williams' career, it's amazing to hear her talk about how the music itself has helped to heal her spirit, if not her illness. "When I make a record, I hope it will be good for people," she says with absolute sincerity. "Once I was down in this Mexican neighborhood. There was music playing and it got into me, and I started dancing around. When I looked up, everyone was smiling, and I thought, 'Wow, people really like to see me happy.' I realized that rolling around in my own sordid sorrows is no good for other people. It's kind of selfish." Even when she's on the sidelines, Williams is still a channel through which music flows, bringing felicity to those around her.
SALON | Jan. 14, 1998

Meredith Ochs is an editor at Guitar World magazine in New York.