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Dar Williams
After college in the early '90s, Williams launched her music career
on the Boston-Cambridge coffeehouse folk circuit. In 1994 she recorded
her first collection of songs, The Honesty Room, on her own homegrown
label where it was picked up by Waterbug Records, then re-released
in 1995 to a wider audience by Razor & Tie, the Manhattan-based
independent record label which continues to be Williams' home.
With The Honesty Room a bona fide hit (thanks to the popularity of such gems as "You're Aging Well" and "When I Was a Boy," it has sold nearly 100,000 copies), Williams followed up in 1996 with her sophomore disc, Mortal City. It not only out-sold her debut, but it also received widespread critical notice. Spin magazine said "Good singer/songwriters know how to tell a story . . . As younger ones go, Dar Williams is perhaps the most promising." And the Chicago Tribune called her "emotionally present, politically earnest, a born storyteller with a self-effacing humor and armed with a voice that soars and rattles the bones." Williams has kept her formidable legion of fans happy by touring for a good portion of the time between End of the Summer and the recording of The Green World. A major component of her success, past tours have included stints on the Lilith Fair, the collaborative project Cry Cry Cry and have seen her share the stage with artists like Richard Thompson and Ani DiFranco. Williams also has been actively involved in many environmental and social justice movements, including her non-profit foundation, The Snowden Environmental Trust, which helps preserve wildlife habitats around the world. Throughout her career Williams has eschewed clichéd and superficial expression in favor of digging deeper. She aspires to an artistry that not only entertains but also informs and inspires-where the personal intersects with the political, where beauty blooms from the darkness, where journeys through discord lead to clarity. "I'm just holding up mirrors at interesting places," she says. "I'm trying to capture life at strange angles." And as for what category of music she sees herself in these days, Williams says, "Sixties folk rock was my original muse and the folk audience-people who listen to music off the beaten track-fostered my career. I definitely don't want to abandon the genre but I also need to make sure I'm Dar Williams first." |
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