Dar Williams is Finding Balance
Dar Williams pictured at the St. Mary’s Church thrift sale in Cold Spring, New York on April 26, 2024. Photo by Erin-Leigh Hoffman.
Singer-songwriter Dar Williams saw her career blossom in the Boston music scene in the 1990s, but the Mount Kisco native feels uniquely attached to the Hudson Valley.
“The Hudson Valley is who I am and what I am,” Williams said warmly.
Williams is on tour with her first few stops in the southern United States with singer-songwriter Heather Maloney. Williams has been a touring musician for decades, visiting cities across the country with an appreciation for the beauty and the people she meets.
“I've been to a lot of beautiful places, and I can see why people live there and love to live there,” Williams said, mentioning the beautiful landscapes of Florida, Virginia and West Virginia which she feels “there is no place in West Virginia that isn’t stunning.”
She put on a show on May 5 in Birmingham, Alabama where she came away with an appreciation for the community of people she witnessed, despite a wider misconception of conformity and stagnation in diversity.
“You see on the news that everybody's becoming sort of lockstep, and they're pushing away all sorts of diversity like racial diversity and sexual orientation, but the truth is the cultural American story keeps getting more interesting,” Williams explained.
Giving Back to Her Community
Although Williams sees the many colors and creeds of the United States during her tours, she has found a way to balance the commitments of her music career with staying active within her Hudson Valley community.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Williams had time to reflect on methods available to her to be active in her community as she always was before the pandemic.
“I decided that I wanted to keep on working, but I would figure out ways to do more fundraisers,” Williams noted, adding that she wanted to “make sure that I was looping in organizations so that I could share the microphone with them, as well as help them raise money, and I've always done that, but I decided I would do that more.”
Most recently, Williams helped put together a thrift sale at St. Mary’s Church in Cold Spring, New York where she, her friend Ivy Meeropol and a team of volunteers raised 18,000 dollars for the church and a local environmental organization. Part of the balance Williams has found comes from support within her community.
“I have a sense of two things having lived in my community for 20 years; I know how hard things are to do. I know what the work is to do a thrift sale, and I also know the kinds of people who can do it so that we can work interdependently and effectively,” Williams reflected.
She adds that it is possible to be involved in her community while maintaining her career by “just knowing who does what and how well they do it and drawing on all of their great skills and their generosity to do things.”
This balancing act Williams has performed also comes from her environmental footprint as a touring musician - something she is acutely aware of and strives to offset.
She purchased an electric vehicle and works to educate and fundraise for the causes she believes in. As a touring musician, she found this an effective way to keep touring and promote “change that we can embrace and manage.”
A Musical Legacy Follows Williams
Williams has made a name for herself in her local community, and her legacy as a definitive musician in the folk, singer-songwriter genre. She toured and recorded music with Joan Baez who remains a friend of Williams, and she’s regarded as “folk’s most influential and oft-imitated figure” by the Music Museum of New England.
She has released 14 records since 1993, and she is known for her music exploring various topics with a dedicated following of fans. She hosts a songwriting retreat that she describes as allowing people to find “a certain honesty” that is translated into music.
Her musical footprint is immense, and the singer-songwriter genre today is dominated by women exploring many of the same gender issues and relationship complexities Williams explored in her discography.
Through her perspective, Williams sees that lyric-centric music has returned to the forefront of the songwriting style for which she is renowned.
“I think Taylor Swift is a part of that. Phoebe Bridgers is also a part of that, and Sarah Jarosz is a part of that. I would also say Beyonce is a big part of that,” Williams expressed. She notices the honesty of the writing stemming from questions of intention in telling the truth.
Williams also noted that there will always be a goal to capitalize on the genre's sound, but authenticity will find its way since “you cannot brand real honesty. So the more people tap into what feels truly honest to them, the more deep and cultural singer-songwriter songs can be.”
It Comes Back Around to the Valley
Williams’ influence in the folk, singer-songwriter genre is not singularly defined by her work. Her contemporaries have forwarded the genre alongside her, and those who came before Williams created the path by which these musicians walk down.
This path has been paved in Williams’ backyard of Woodstock, New York which she admits she “secretly wished” she lived up there. However, Williams had Pete Seeger two miles away, and the spirit of Woodstock was always around her.
Williams remembers Seeger's influence, “He was always trying to get everybody to sing, you know, just to get the world to sing and to participate musically.”
The beauty of the Hudson Valley is important for Williams, but the landscape is two-fold in its importance. “I consider it to be very uniquely beautiful. So I feel like I've got the best of both worlds - natural and cultural,” Williams said.
As Williams continues her career in music and tours across the United States and the world, she remains rooted in her community and culture of the Hudson Valley.
“It’s this idea that we all have music in us. I think it’s another great Hudson Valley legacy.”
