Singer-Songwriter Dar Williams Shines at the South Orange Performing Arts Center
Dar Williams is one busy gal. She released a new album this year. She’s working on a book that draws on her 20+ years of touring and focuses on the critical process of community-building. She hosts a songwriting retreat. She teaches a course called “Music Movements in a Capitalist Democracy” at her alma mater, Wesleyan University. She ran kids’ summer camp programs that included performances as well as lessons in digging in the dirt and bee preservation. She does workshops and discussions that spotlight the craft of writing – both books and songs.
And yet, with this jam-packed schedule, her dedication to creating new music and traveling and performing has not waned. In fact, Williams will appear with her “dear friend” Lucy Wainwright Roche this Thursday, December 17 at the South Orange Performing Arts Center.
In a recent phone conversation, I marveled to Williams about this varied range of time-and-energy-intensive activities, and asked her how it’s possible to maintain balance.
The short answer is that Williams has been able, throughout her long and successful career, to stay focused on what is important to her.
Whether it is writing songs, sharing what she has learned, or documenting her experiences, Williams says, “everything I do is designed to discover something and bring it back.
“And I, in turn, use all of that.”
For example, when Williams started to feel as though her performance schedule was a bit too restrained, she reassessed. "For a time, it seemed like we were going more for the bigger cities, and touring less,” she says, “I realized that it was time to get back to the 50-state strategy.
“So, recently we’ve been hitting other places – Kansas, New Mexico, Arizona, to name a few,” she says, “and it feels good to be spreading it out a bit.”
At the heart of all of this is the importance of creativity and community, both in a global sense and a personal way.
Take the recent record, “Emerald,” for example. For one thing, the list of support staff is impressive, with folks like Richard Thompson, Jim Lauderdale, Eric Bazilian and Rob Hyman of the Hooters, and Suzzy and Lucy Wainwright Roche playing and singing with Williams.
I asked how these collaborations came about.
“They are all friends, and I asked them to be a part of it," she explains. “I wanted to show that the latticework of relationships built over the years continues to be interconnected.”
And this idea also ties in with Williams’ grander vision of community, and with the concepts she explores in the book she has been writing.
“The book has to do with how people want to do something to build community,” Williams says.
But, instead of starting with a sentiment or a feeling, the catalyst is more concrete.
“They don’t start with love,” Williams says, “they start with some guy carving out a sledding hill with his truck.
“And these small projects – whether it’s a garden or a new local concert venue – attract others, and serve as inspiration. This is what sparks community.”
Williams also tested the concept of a community when she decided to self-release “Emerald” using the Pledge Music fundraising site.
On her website, Williams describes how it went. “Pledge for me is like swimming in a pool,” she notes. “I like being around my fans, so I said ‘Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do it.’”
She says that it was an adjustment getting used to sharing so much about the album’s sessions with her fans and followers, but that she enjoyed the interaction.
“I heard that people want to know about the recording process,” the site says. “I had kind of forgotten the wonderful ‘Alice in Wonderland’ feeling of first coming into the studio 20 years ago, and the Pledge campaign reminded me.”
Although I have long been a Dar Williams fan, I didn’t know about the Pledge Music campaign, nor had I heard the songs on “Emerald” until after its release. But if I had, especially “FM Radio,” the tune Williams co-wrote with singer/songwriter Jill Sobule, I would have happily added some cash to the pot.
The song is an anthem, in the best sense of the word. A sharp and wholly entertaining—not to mention catchy—examination of culture, of music and the way it all works together to create something enduring.
When I told Williams how much I LOVE this song, she shared some what went into it.
“Writing with Jill Sobule was like keeping a big colorful beach ball in the air,” she told me.
“We started with that thing, the excitement that people have, and we built on that.
“It was like time travel – going back to this special, magical time, of unicorns and smiley faces and the weird equanimity through music.”
And, as the song reminds us, this was all pulled together by the radio people.
“Lou Reed says he’s a bisexual,Jackson Browne is an intellectual,Stevie Wonder bought a house for his mother,DJ telling us we’re sister and brother,We are the cosmos, we are the glam kids,Putting stardust on our eyelids,Nightbird’s calling for a group meditation,Sending Patty Hearst a positive vibration.”
“We thought a lot about what made that time different, and people’s personal lives, and tried to find good examples to use in the lyrics.”
Williams notes that it was hard to choose what to put in and what to leave out, and that, in her words, “a lot didn’t make the cut.”
But the song is beautifully effective in taking you back to another time without sounding sappy or foolish.
“We all know that it’s not like that now,” Williams says, “but maybe you can have a little bottle of that to pour over your head when you need it.”
Dar Williams is performing at the South Orange Performing Arts Center, One SOPAC Way, South Orange, on Thursday, December 17 at 7:30. For tickets or more information, visit http://www.sopacnow.org.
