From Diva Magazine
December 1996/January 1997

Dar Williams has sleek hair, sympathethic eyes and a wicked laugh. She is also fiendishly articulate. An "up-and-coming" singer/songwriter who plays her guitar like a washboard and sings with a lilt, she is frank in her lyrics and just as direct in interviews. I recently met the rising New York folk star in Dublin, when she came over for a European tour, and one of my first questions was about her latest single, "As Cool As I Am," a razor-sharp jaunt through the foibles of relationship.

"It's about taking a stand against insidious abuses," Dar explains. "A friend of mine, who is envied a lot for her beauty and magnetic personality, went out with someone who was not dynamic at all, who projected a lot of neurosis on to her by talking about other women. I once found myself in the same sort of situation, when a lover was quietly critical of things important to me. It was a hard relationship to get out of."

Particularly striking in the song are the lines: "Yeah, there was a time I didn't like the love, I liked the climbers/ I was no sister then, I was running out of time and one-liners/ ...I will not be afraid of women, I will not be afraid of women."

Dar admits she might have been afraid of women once, but she isn't now.

"Probably because I grew up with three sisters, I know what it's like to be competitive with women. But one of the great benefits of my generation is that female friendships are much stronger, and we're more savvy about the way the media makes us compete with each other." And romatic relationships with women? Dar won't be drawn. "Let's just say that I'm very female-identified," she asserts.

Since the release in 1995 of her debut album, The Honesty Room, and its follow-up, Mortal City, Dar has been building up a following in the US and Europe -- not just amongst the sisterhood, but also on the Internet and in

a strong network of alternative folk clubs, radio stations, and record labels. Signed to Grapevine in this country (the enlightened indie that sports top female singers such as Emmylou Harris, Joan Baez and Janis Ian), Dar has become a critical favourite and the music industry's biggest secret. She is happy to to keep it that way for a while.

As a 28-year-old veteran of the same Boston coffee-house scene which spawned Tracy Chapman, Dar has learned from the detrimental effect which massive media exposure has had on Chapman's career.

"Michelle Shocked once said she wanted the career that Tracy Chapman has, but over a period of ten years," says Dar. "I've heard that the sudden fame was really difficult for Tracy. There's so much sexism, racism and homophobia in the record industry, and I feel she's been a victim of all three."

Although she's had plenty of offers, no one has been able to persuade Dar to move to a major record company. "I'm signed to a small label that I know won't sit on me, or make me do that commercial sexual thing -- the doe in the headlights image or the smeared debutante look that's so popular now. With me there's no creepy slant, no crafted persona."

Dar's engaging honesty is partly the result of having had to fight for her artistic identity in a middle-class New York suburb which was designed for people to be "safe, well-educated, and well-dressed." An hour north of New York City, the town of Chappaqua is full of bankers and lawyers, yet paradoxically has a high teen-suicide rate.

"Something was askew in the sense of expectations versus reality," says Dar. It was here that she carved a role for herself which was different from her successful but critical older sisters. She found theatre, God and garbage. By senior year at high school, Dar was writing music and plays, hanging out at the local Quaker Institute, and becoming an environmental activist, encouraging people to re-evaluate what they discard.

By the time she went to the prestigious Wesleyan College in Connecticut to study theatre, she had moved away from Quakerdom, but retained a politicised sprirituality -- a these which runs with zest throught her music.

Considering that, it is hardly surprising that Joan Baez, the hippy queen of the 60s, is one of Dar's heroines. They met nearly two years ago at a concert, Baez invited her to fill a support slot on a forthcoming tour, and the two have been close friends and fellow travellers ever since.

"At first I felt like a folk waif she'd taken pity on," says Dar. "But Joan does a lot to lower the stakes. I see her as very committed but in a very graceful way. My hope is to do the same kind of thing with my career. She pulls it off better than I do. It's an art form."

Earlier in the year, she and Baez did a benefit with the Indigo Girls in the famous Alcatraz prison. The concert was staged by Bread & Roses, a US fundraising and performance organisation for people confined to mental hospitals or institutions. She loved being a part of the project, not just because of their compatible politics, but for the offbeat humour which the three acts all shared. Boez, in partcular, knows how to make her young protegee laugh.

Dar tells how she once left her shoes in Joan's hotel room when they were on tour. When she got up, Dar opened the door to find her shoes placed neatly outside her room, with a note attached. "Dar Dar," it said, "You need new shoes. Otherwise you're perfect. Love, La Baez."

How's that for a cool endorsement? It might take her ten years, but slowly and surely, Dar is on her way.

Thanks to Sally Green for the transcript.