Metro Pulse/Music/Mark Olson

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Who:
Mark Olson and Victoria Williams with the Original Harmony Ridge Creekdippers

When:
9 p.m. Friday, Feb. 9

Where:
The Pilot Light

How Much:$15. Advance tickets are on sale at the club and at both Disc Exchange locations.

Mark Olson and Victoria Williams bring their wandering country-folk-rock to town.

by Jesse Fox Mayshark

The first time I called Mark Olson, I got him out of bed. Victoria Williams actually answered the cell phone, her high whispery voice sounding distinctly sleepy. "Knoxville, interview," I heard her say as she handed the phone over to her equally groggy husband after I explained who I was.

"Can you call back this afternoon?" Olson asked. "I want to do a good interview." Apparently there had been some lapse of contact between the band and their publicity department, not unusual for musicians on the road.

We did do the interview later, and it was fine. Olson said they were still on West Coast time; hence the sleeping in. But it was a telling introduction, in a way. Olson and Williams are one of those rare show biz couples, equal partners in life and music, and they've probably spent a lot of time answering each other's phone calls.

The incident also belied the idyllic depictions of their lives I've read elsewhere. It's true that since leaving the critically acclaimed Jayhawks six years ago, Olson has lived with Williams on a patch of land in Joshua Tree, California. They grow some things and play music with their friends. But mostly, Olson says, they work hard.

"What we've been doing the last few years is just recording and going out and touring," he says. "We have 10 acres; it's just sand, basically. We live in the desert. We have a few fruit trees. I mean, it's pretty. But it's not just lazing around with a guitar under a palm tree."

He's got the discography to prove it, although you may not have noticed. Olson was the founder and driving force in the Jayhawks. But after he parted ways with his harmonizer and co-songwriter Gary Louris (following the band's quasi-breakthrough Tomorrow the Green Grass album in 1995), Louris kept the band and Olson took off into the wilderness with Williams. The Jayhawks have released two uneven albums since then, reflecting Louris' '60s pop fixation much more than the dusty country-rock Olson loves.

Olson and Williams, meanwhile, pulled together a small group of friends and started releasing albums on their own small label under the moniker of the Original Harmony Ridge Creekdippers. Williams, an idiosyncratic singer-songwriter who has released five albums, also continued to record for Atlantic. (The 1993 tribute album Sweet Relief featured artists ranging from Lucinda Williams to Pearl Jam covering her songs, in an effort to raise money for medical bills arising from her multiple sclerosis.) The first three Creekdippers CDs are available at www.thegrid.net/ creekdipper/ and via mail, but beyond that Olson had trouble getting the music distributed.

So when he heard that the California indie label Hightone—home to Dave Alvin, Buddy Miller and Ramblin' Jack Elliott—was interested in his next effort, Olson was happy to oblige. Released late last year, My Own Jo Ellen is the first Creekdippers effort to highlight Olson's name (as in Mark Olson and the Original Harmony Ridge Creekdippers). From his face on the front to his grandmother's photo on the back (she's the Jo Ellen of the title) to the "all songs by Mark Olson" credit inside, there's no question whose album it is.

It doesn't contain any surprises for anyone familiar with the Jayhawks. There's the same off-kilter sense of melody, songs that take three or four listens to sink in. There's Olson's creaky, comfortable tenor voice, offset by Williams' sweet and sour harmonies. And there's the rambling, shambling sense of personal place and universal history.

So what's it like living in a household with two recording contracts? "We do one record and then the other and just kind of run back-up for each other," Olson says. "I'll be down picking people up at the airport or getting dinner ready or getting the recording equipment ready; I'll do that for her records and she'll do that for my records. There's a lot that goes into recording besides just playing music."

You can't read a review or interview with Olson without finding some reference to legendary space cowboy Gram Parsons, whose recordings with the Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers, and Emmylou Harris invented the whole idea of "country rock." Olson, a Parsons acolyte from way back, doesn't mind the comparisons. "That's really cool. I like his records and his voice and all those things. I think when people do that, they're missing out that we're really different in the way we write. [But] he took a lot of musical styles and mixed them up, and that's what I like to do. And he had that whole country/ hippie thing, which we do too but with more folk [music] mixed in."

Their audience has a similar mix, he says. "There will be some really young people who have just gotten into what they call 'twang' music, and then there will be some really elderly people. We have a wide range...We're not exactly the Grateful Dead crowd..." There's a pause, and Williams' voice is audible in the background. Olson laughs. "Well, Vic says we are the Grateful Dead crowd."

Told that might not be a bad thing in Knoxville, with its abundant Phish-head audience, Olson sounds intrigued. "You can tell 'em we're happy to have the Phish kids come if they want. We do a lot of jamming. We do the songs, but within the songs, there's a lot."

Because the thing is, Mark Olson and Victoria Williams are going to play their music no matter who's there. It's what they do.