By Faith Quintavell
FOR THE INQUIRER

She started four years ago on a tiny Massachusetts label, Waterbug Records, singing charming acoustic story-songs in her flexible, clear soprano.

With some help from a Web page and a buzz in Internet chat rooms, that first CD, The Honesty Room, was picked up by independent label Razor & Tie. It has sold 53,000 copies -- stunning for a folk album on a smallish label.

With her newest release, End of the Summer, which hit stores this week, Dar Williams is one of the most recognized, most talked about new artists in contemporary folk. Though the lyrics and melody are unmistakably Dar, she enlisted the help of a bunch of stellar session musicians for this one, including guitarist Bill Dillon, who has worked with Peter Gabriel and Daniel Lanois; Larry Campbell, whose credits include Bob Dylan and k.d. lang.

Williams will be appearing with a full band -- it's one of her first-ever performances with a band -- Sunday evening at Penn's Landing as part of WXPN Singer/Songwriter weekend. (The bad news is that, for the first time, an admission fee -- $3 -- will be charged.)

Williams' musical experimentation in the new songs didn't affect her intimate lyrics at all. In ``Tell Me What You Hear In These Sounds,'' for instance, she celebrates what she gained from psychotherapy for clinical depression. From her home in Northampton, Mass., she talked last week about her music, her fans, her growing fame, and therapy.

``It saved my life,'' said Williams. ``Instead of making me more selfish, I started to notice all the people out there that no one ever listens to. I thought, `Thank God someone sent me to the expensive shrink; look at all these people who never get heard.' There's a wonderful process where you forgive yourself for something and suddenly you're able to forgive other people for that. Layers of blame and guilt start to come off, and you see that everybody's just sort of flailing around, desperate for love and attention and recognition.''

Does she feel awkward to be so revealing in song? ``There's a big part of my life that's completely public at this point,'' Williams says. ``And, I mean, it's got fenceposts. It's not all of me. But it is a lot of me. I've always felt like it's worse to be private about stuff than to be public about embarrassing stuff that might be helpful to other people to find out about,'' she said with a laugh.

``People think celebrities either totally have their act together or are like really [ messed ] up. I don't think either scenario is true. . . . I like making sure that everyone knows I'm as ordinary as they come.''

Maybe it's this vulnerability that attracts so many teenagers to the 30-year-old Williams -- they're a big part of her audience. But another reason is probably her humorous and poignant story-songs about childhood experiences, such as ``When I Was A Boy'' and ``The Babysitter's Here''.

``Most of my albums, according to the SoundScan, are sold out of the suburbs, so I guess there's a common background,'' says the singer, who grew up in Chappaqua, an outlying suburb of New York. ``There's a lot of kids that feel misunderstood and there's a lot about being misunderstood in these songs. [ Teens ] are suspicious and they are pierced and they have a
`keep out' sign put on them. I think it's `keep out' because inside there's stuff that's really precious.

``As long as they know that you're on their side . . . you'll get all these spiky-haired kids coming up to you and saying, 'I had a babysitter like that and her name was Barbara and I remember she had really big boobs and she baked cookies that her grandmother taught her how to make,' '' Williams recalled, laughing. ``It's a huge surprise I'm so popular with them. That's a tough crowd, so I'm thrilled.''

And they'll probably be thrilled with her new song, ``Teenagers, Kick Our Butts.'' ``It's sort of an imperative that I wanted to communicate,'' Williams says, laughing again, ``That they should just be their awkward, exploring, really curious selves, and see what they can make of the world .
. . and try to get to the stuff that's more raw, that they can really question. I think in the suburbs you encounter people who have an awful lot of power,'' she said, ``and for all that power, there's also a lot of fear. Teenagers are the scapegoats of adults who are afraid of their own power.''
 

Thanks to Sally Green for the transcript