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DAR WILLIAMS
Dar Williams’ lyrics contain bouquets of optimism, delivered on melodies alternating between beguiling lightness and understated gravity. Williams strongly believes that all of us possess our own power and ability to achieve, and she rejects the exceptionalism that encourages us to “admire that yonder star,” while making us feel small and insignificant; unworthy of shining on our own but hoping to catch enough distant light to inspire some tiny accomplishment. Williams has always been very interested in how to control our future and this album has to do with the fact that at some point, you just can’t.
Like everyone else, Williams spent 2020 in that state of non-control. She and longtime producer Stewart Lerman tracked most of the album, her 12th studio recording, in November of 2019. In late February of 2020, she cut the title tune in Woodstock with bassist Gail Ann Dorsey and Larry Campbell, who produced the track and played guitars, pedal steel and twangy baritone guitar. When told they had to postpone a mid-March mixing date, Campbell said he wasn’t feeling well anyway. Turns out he’d contracted a serious case of COVID-19. That was a clear sign that at some point, you have to meet life where it meets you …the common thread throughout that these songs, the willingness to meet life as it arrives.
Dar Williams was always in the right place at the right time for the success she’s had over a 25+-year career. She rose out of the vibrant mid-90’s Boston scene, inspired by the eclectic influences of alt-rockers, Berklee jazz musicians, slam poets, and folk artists, like Patty Griffith, Melissa Ferrick, the Throwing Muses, Vance Gilbert, and Jonatha Brooke. After a year of touring non-stop with her first album, The Honesty Room, in 1994, she was invited by Joan Baez to tour in Europe and The United States.
“Good and bad things happen, and it’s not necessarily a reward or indictment. I’ve just got to meet it.” Williams observes. “Like, I’m bringing my whole life to this moment; it will surprise me, challenge me, show me where I was wrong, even make a fool out of me, but my job is to show up and not take adversity personally. Real happiness doesn't have to feel like Snoopy dancing with Woodstock; it can just be knowing you have the resilience to meet whatever comes to you. I will call that a good life.”
THE NIELDS
November is the Nields 20th album. With each song inspired by the headlines, the cover of the CD is, fittingly, a newspaper design. Though the songs tackle critical issues––the climate crisis (“The Kids Always Get It”), injustice at the border (“Goodbye, Mexico,” “Jesus Was a Refugee”), the fragility of our democracy (“America the Beautiful”)––the message of hope pulses through each track, a strong and steady heartbeat. In “Follow that Girl,” an eleven-year-old rides her bike to school in all kinds of weather, inspiring her mother to give up her minivan. “We’re Gonna Build a Boat” assures all who struggle with the results of the 2016 election that together we can “make it safe to come back home.” Set to a driving disco beat, “November” imagines an election day when we will celebrate together. “Butterfly” focuses on the struggle and triumph of a young person’s metamorphosis as they come out as who they really are. “Tyrants Always Fall” was written the day before the 2017 inauguration, and it has come to be known as the “Resistance Anthem” in many circles. For the two familiar songs –“This Land Is Your Land” and “America the Beautiful”—the Nields are joined by a bevy of others, including Dar Williams, Chris Smither, Peter Mulvey, Vance Gilbert, Ben Demerath, Kalliope Jones, and their own children, plus members of a local youth chorus. The lyrics of “America the Beautiful” have been tinkered with (“And crown thy good in neighborhoods…”) to reflect what today’s poets might hope for our country.