An Endearing Earful of an Album From Victoria Williams

Victoria Williams’ “Happy Come Home” is one of the most heartwarmingly original albums of the year, a collection of 13 songs and stories that celebrate gentle moments and truths with an uncommonly optimistic and endearing vision.

Some of Williams’ tales--including an ode to a pair of old shoes--are so slight by conventional pop standards that you could imagine an admiring record producer praising them, then urging Williams to go home and finish the songs.

This understatement, however, works to Williams’ advantage over the length of the album as she--aided by producers Anton Fier and Steven Soles--introduces you to people and places in ways that are as disarming as a late afternoon stroll down a quiet country road.

The opening lines of “Frying Pan,” one of the songs on the debut album just released by Geffen Records, summarize the singer-songwriter’s endearing, sweet-centered approach:

One laugh in the middle of a struggle

A diamond at the bottom of a puddle

Did you ever stare at the moon ‘til you saw double ?

Williams’ themes--in praise of enduring values in a disposable society--are bolstered by full, consistently inventive arrangements (lots of customized use of percussion and strings, including violins and steel guitars) and by a distinctive vocal style that combines the cheery innocence of Dolly Parton with a pronounced quaver.

Born in a small northern Louisiana town, Williams went through a variety of odd jobs and even a bit of college before setting her sights on songwriting and moving to Los Angeles briefly in 1979. After a spell back home, she returned here in 1982 and has become a central figure in the city’s contemporary, folk-accented acoustic scene.

Her music, however, retains a strong sense of regional character and detail, making Williams seem at times more aligned with the Southern tradition of short story writers than the pop world.

Like her husband, Peter Case, whose equally warm album was one of the high points of last year, Williams, 28, finds inspiration in what would strike most observers as the most ordinary of people or events.

In “Shoes,” she writes about a favorite pair of old shoes with much the same affection others might use in talking about days spent with a trusted collie. There’s a hint of spirituality in much of her music that makes it only natural for the listener to think of the word soles also as souls .

In “Happy,” a short, 55-second aside on the album, Williams speaks of the importance of looking past the obvious when evaluating people. The story is about an old woman who goes up and down the road shouting “happy”--the perfect stereotype of a small-town crazy.

But the woman, Williams relates, has a dog named Happy, and she is crying out for him. Again, Williams uses the word happy in a way that makes it mean more to us than simply as the dog’s name. The tune--much like John Prine’s “Hello in There”--is a poignant way of reminding us that old folks, too, have needs and dreams.

In this cynical age, it takes a lot of nerve--or a strong artistic heart--to see the beauty in the smallest or most unlikely events, but Williams appears to possess both.

Her music is far from the conventional fare that is readily adopted by radio programmers, which is one reason Geffen Records put Williams together with documentary film maker D. A. Pennebaker.

Pennebaker, whose credits include “Don’t Look Back” (the much-praised 1967 account of a Bob Dylan concert tour), went to Louisiana with Williams to film her performing seven songs from the album (plus a gospel song and an old bayou song) in various settings. The company is hoping the footage, which will be used as a promotional tool, will make pop audiences and radio programmers identify more easily with Williams’ highly personalized style.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK--Asked to look back on Woodstock where he performed with Creedence Clearwater Revival, John Fogerty replies in the 20th anniversary issue of Rolling Stone magazine, “I was a bit cynical. I was telling someone (sarcastically) the other day, ‘The Woodstock generation--yeah, this is great! Fifty-mile-long traffic jam. No food. No water. No sleep. No shelter. Rained on, sleeping in the mud. This is great, man. What a party. Who was that I was watching last night? I was stoned. I forgot.’

“I mean, Creedence had the privilege of following the Grateful Dead somewhere around 2:30 in the morning on the second day. Creedence was the hottest shot on earth at this moment and we were really ready to rock out, and we waited and waited and waited, and finally it was our turn, and my reaction was, ‘Wow, we got to follow the band that put half a million people to sleep.’

” . . . About three songs into the set, I look out past the floodlights, and I see about five rows of bodies just interwined--they’re asleep. Stoned and asleep . . . I was searching to see if anybody was awake . . . (and) a quarter of a mile away in the darkness, on the other edge of this bowl, there was some guy flicking his Bic, and in the night I hear, ‘Don’t worry about it, John. We’re with you.’ I played the rest of the show for that guy.”

NOTES AND NEWS--Roy Orbison is joined by K. D. Lang on the “Hiding Out” sound track for a remake of “Crying,” one of Orbison’s classic tales of romantic anxiety. . . . Billy Joel has released his rendition of the Beatles’ “Back in the U.S.S.R” as a single from his live album recorded in the Soviet Union. . . . “Go Cut Creator Go,” L. L. Cool J’s Chuck Berry-styled rap, is the latest single from “Bigger and Deffer.” . . . The word is “Tunnel of Love” will be the next Springsteen single. . . . Elvis Costello has written a song with Paul McCartney that may be released as the U.K.-only B-side of McCartney’s next single.

LIVE ACTION--Sly & the Family Stone is due Wednesday and Thursday night at the Las Palmas Theatre in Hollywood. . . . Waylon Jennings will be featured in an “evening of conversation and music” at the Westwood Playhouse on Nov. 20 to 22 and at the Crazy Horse in Santa Ana on Nov. 23 and 24. . . . Love and Rockets will be joined by Jane’s Addiction on Dec. 12 at UC Irvine’s Bren Events Center.