Victoria Williams

Pearl Jam

From a benefit CD called “Sweet Relief” - put together for Musicians struggling with disease and health care bills. The website is here.

Sweet Relief was founded by Victoria Williams, and is guided by a board of directors comprised of members of the music industry. It is funded by the music community and a variety of individual donors, as well as through benefit concerts, auctions and albums.

When Victoria was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1992, she, like most musicians, had no health insurance to help defray the mounting cost of her illness. Consequently, she faced the possibility of not getting adequate treatment. to maintain her health. Her predicament did not go unnoticed however, and as word of her condition spread, the music community responded with an unprecedented flow of support.

An impressive array of Victoria’s friends and fans volunteered their talents and performed at benefit concerts in New York and Los Angeles. The concerts raised over $20,000 and inspired Williams’ admirers to assemble the Sweet Relief album, which features fourteen versions of Victoria’s compositions.

Encouraged by the overwhelming support of the music community, Williams founded Sweet Relief Musicians Fund, to which a portion of the album’s proceeds are donated. The fund was established as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation and its first grants were paid out in late 1994. Since then, we have steadily helped support artists in need.

The second Sweet Relief album (though the first to wholly benefit the Fund), Sweet Relief II: Gravity of the Situation, The Songs of Vic Chesnutt, features performances by Garbage, R.E.M., Nanci Griffith and Hootie & the Blowfish, Soul Asylum, dog’s eye view, LIVE, The Smashing Pumpkins and Red, Red, Meat, Sparklehorse, Joe Henry and Madonna, Kristen Hersh, Cracker, Indigo Girls, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Vic Chesnutt and Victoria Williams.

This song is great, looking for a better version

“Summer of Drugs” - Soul Asylum