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In 1993, when a bunch of famous artists underwrote Victoria
Williams's multiple sclerosis treatments with the tribute album
Sweet Relief, their show of support somehow transformed an
eccentric singer-songwriter into a full-service musician. Williams
is a highly nondenominational Christian who grew up in Louisiana,
and although macho men may turn up their noses at her kooky
pastoral epiphanies and Technicolor memories fey, she's finds
clear-eyed strength in her weirdness when need be. On 1995's Loose
and the new Musings of a Creekdipper (Atlantic),
her quavery voice
and associative structures are as fragile as ever, but the lyricism
Sweet Relief's cover versions emphasized is out there for all to
hear. Loose has the more forthright tunes, but the melodies of the
quieter Creekdipper reveal themselves soon enough, and the subtlety
of the project renders its pleasures deeper in the end. Delicacy
can be like that when there's sinew underlying it.
In these days of gone-tomorrow novelty one-shots the many casual
fans who grew to love Tubthumping and Walking on the Sun might
sanely expect not much from Chumbawamba's Tubthumper
(Republic/Universal) and Smash Mouth's Fush Yu Mang (Interscope).
But they;d be wrong. In their very dissimilar ways, both albums are
brash and busy, tuneful and verbal--fun surprises like the singles,
only less addictive.
Anyone who can't believe that a generation of yong Deadheads can be
quite as addled as bigots believe should take comfort in the three-CD
Dozing at the Knick (Grateful Dead), which proves that for at
least one post-Nixon gig (Albany, New York, 1990) their permanent
roadshow was as responsive and inspired as their fans expected,
prayed, or claimed it was every night.
Playboy, Feb. 1998
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Jan. 1998 |
Mar. 1998 |
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