From the start Dar Williams has always been a bit of an outsider, an anomaly amongst the male dominated folk music scene of her day.
Even with the emergence of such female artists as Shawn Colvin, Lucy Kaplansky, and Suzanne Vega, Williams stood slightly apart.
While the others engaged in a more personal view, writing material that reflected their individual journeys and tribulations, Williams wrote from a more expansive perspective, looking at the world from without as well as within.
Her best songs (“Christians and the Pagans” and “Teenagers Kick Our Butts” come readily to mind) also demonstrated a sense of humor largely absent in the slightly insular world of modern-day folk. She is also adept at avoiding the cloying and unnecessarily eccentric leanings of her contemporaries. It is with good reason that her songwriting and performing style has been compared to that of Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez, yet with an acidic sense of humor.
Born in Mount Kisco, New York, but raised in nearby Chappaqua, Dar Williams was raised in a socially liberal and highly intellectual family — her parents were educated at Yale and Vassar — two traits which impacted her work to varying degrees.
She began studying guitar at age nine and wrote her first song at 11. In high school she was interested in athletics, but an ankle injury led her to somewhat impulsively audition for the musical Godspell. She became active in drama, and by her senior year, after composing more music and writing plays, declared herself a playwright, blaming an “existential crisis” at age 16 for her creativity and sharp sense of humor.
During her sophomore year at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, Williams spent a few months in Berkeley, California, where she wrote songs and began performing. After earning a B.A., she moved to Boston in 1990 to find a career in the arts, dabbling in everything from directing plays and operas, to performing. By the year’s end she was stage manager for the Opera Company of Boston.
She also began taking voice lessons and, at the urging of her voice coach, starting playing the local coffeehouse circuit. After two years of struggle she abandoned Boston for the relaxed folksy, artsy atmosphere of Northampton, Massachusetts. It was there she found her niche, fitting in well with both the folk and university scene.
After several self-released cassettes, Williams made her proper debut in 1993 with the independent produced Honesty Room. The album gained considerable critical acclaim for both her beautiful soprano voice and her straightforward yet intriguing songs. The following year she signed to Razor & Tie Records, which reissued the album — in a slightly differing format — while Williams continued touring and building an audience.
Her second album, Mortal City (1995), was similarly praised. Seizing the momentum, Williams almost immediately began work on 1997’s End of the Summer, considered by many of her fans (including myself) to be her finest moment. But one mark of Williams’ career has been her consistency.
Since then she’s released seven albums for the Razor and Tie label, and while each has their own distinctive personality they are remarkably sturdy and enduring. Much of that has been her refusal to hastily grab hold of whatever new trend or style is dictating the day. Williams knows her strengths as an artist and wisely works within that structure.
Dar Williams continues to tour regularly and, in addition to remaining a major presence on the concert trail in 2010 she released the career-spanning two-disc set Many Great Companions. It featured one compilation disc of fan favorites and another disc of newly recorded songs from her catalog performed in an acoustic format.
And while her 2003 set Out There Live/The Green World did a reasonable job of capturing the essence of her shows, the only way to experience the artistry of Dar Williams is seeing her on stage. Which is precisely why her performance at the Grey Eagle is such a rare and not to be missed treat!
If You Go: Dar Williams Saturday, December 7. Doors open at 7 p.m. Tickets are priced at $22 in advance and $25 day-of, for this fully seated, all ages show. The Grey Eagle, 185 Clingman Ave., Asheville. Call (828) 232-5800 or visit www.thegreyeagle.com
