On Harmony Ridge

In the same way that the Band’s second album mysteriously evoked an acoustic American spirit circa Matthew Brady, so does the intimate work of the Creekdippers, a.k.a. Mark Olson and Victoria Williams. It was Olson’s keening voice and haunting songs that guided alt-county heroes the Jayhawks, until he departed that group in 1995. Williams’ distinctive child-woman warble entered the national music consciousness via Sweet Relief, a 1993 benefit album featuring her songs done by pals including Lucinda Williams, Pearl Jam, Lou Reed and Michael Penn. A year before, she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and, like many Americans, was without health insurance.

Since their mid-1990s marriage, these soulmates’ journey would make such sentimental time travelers as Rod Serling and Jack Finney smile. And, in the greeting line to wherever back there is, the Creekdippers would be welcomed by Gram Parsons, Stephen Foster, Mother Maybelle and Billie Holiday.

“We like old things,” confided a spiritual Williams, whose health has maintained with treatment. The anecdote of her as an 8-year-old with a cigar box filled with her written thoughts anticipated her prescience. “One cigar box was labeled ‘Life.’ I mean, what could I have known? I don’t have that anymore, but they are probably all the songs I’m still writing,” she said, laughing. Williams has always laced her shows with standards, and her tenderness with songs like “Over the Rainbow” and “Until the Real Thing Comes Along” makes them favorites. This August, she released Sings Some Ol’ Songs (Dualtone), with gems like “Moon River,” “My Funny Valentine” and “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?” which reminded her of home. “My uncle lived in the French Quarter. I lived up in the Baptist section, Shreveport, but I loved visiting him,” she said.

The teenaged Williams left Louisiana with an acoustic guitar from a Baton Rouge pawnshop and headed to Los Angeles. She later discovered nearby Joshua Tree, the Mojave desert touchstone for nature-loving, mysteries-of-the universe-seeking sojourners. There, she rented a tiny place and wrote songs for her first albums. In 1995, after she and Olson married, they found a bigger house and built a studio. It is big-sky land sans neighbors. “Twenty acres away, there is a house; and about 80 acres over there, one more; and then over there, is nobody; and back there, nobody, too,” she explained in a lovely Southern drawl, turning in a four-square motion.

Olson, a Minnesotan, fell for Williams after seeing her perform at his Los Angeles City College in 1984. Only years later, after she had married and divorced folk singer Peter Case, and Olson had become famous with the Jayhawks, did their mutual fate finally flower. “Vic brought me out to Joshua Tree, and I felt right at home,” he revealed.

Fans questioned his leaving the Jayhawks at the peak of their popularity, but he is clearly settled and happier in his lower-fi lifestyle. In two weeks, he wrote the wistful songs of December’s Child (Dualtone), in a gentle language and cadence that does not feel of this time.

“That is a style I have affected over the years, from reading mostly,” he noted. “I like Frank O’Connor, an Irish writer.”

“Cactus Wren” resonates a mystical, country, Celtic sense. “Alta’s Song” has a Band feel, with weird gospel, doo-wop, scat singing. On “How Can I Send Tonight (There to Tell You"), “Still We Have a Friend in You” and the beautiful pang of “Nerstrand Woods,” Olson introspects on family and community.

Being blues and gospel lovers, Olson, Williams and band can evoke a John Lee Hooker trance-like state. "That is a great thing live when you start repeating the chorus, and everyone is singing well together," Olson said. "The main thing is to get in the groove on the song. If you can do that and play for people and get some kind of reaction—that is really where it is at. All that other business stuff, all that making of records is … it’s just insanity unleashed."