It's been called folk, singer/songwriter, even traditional acoustic pop, but whatever the label, folky strumming and topical tunes are back in a big way.  Today, more singer/songwriters tread the boards of local concert halls and coffee houses than ever did in the '60's, and their musical range is wider than it ever was 30 years ago.  Labeling Greg Brown and Dar Williams as the king and queen of '90's folk may be a critical ploy, but their steady sales, growing fan base, and in Brown's case, the overwhelming number of excellent songs in his repertoire, makes their coronation a pretty good bet.

Dar Williams loves language; when she sings, her dancing syllables can flow as sweetly as a mountain stream or roll through the air like mini-thunderheads striking the mind with crackling blots of insight. Williams' sweet soprano, wicked wit and understated guitar playing make her a force to be reckoned with; not too shabby for a woman who calls herself "an accidental folk-singer."

"I don't have the ability to get lost in my music, the way great musicians should," Williams explained between sessions for the upcoming album.  "I wanted to write plays, but had terrible stage fright, and trouble dealing with the pettiness and infighting that goes with theater.  In the folk world, if you're willing to play for nothing, you can hit the streets with your guitar.  If you're any good, you'll survive."  Wililiams has done more than survive.  Her two Razor and Tie albums The Honesty Room and Mortal City have racked up impressive sales, she draws rave reviews
whenever she plays, and has attracted friends like folk diva Joan Baez, who covered Williams' "You're Aging Well" on her recent album, and invited Dar to open for her on the American leg of her last tour.

"I was terrified of her for about a week, but she's funny and hip, we're on the same wavelength politically.  It was inspiring."  Williams describes her new album, Hidden Notebook [ed note: I'm thinking this became End of the Summer], as a "fun, pop kind of thing. I tend to write to some kind of grand theme, and lately I've been looking back on my school days, remembering myself as a girl trying to make sense of her suburban surroundings."

Musically the album takes its cue from "As Cool As I Am," with drums, electric guitar, and "lots more drums, which may upset the folk police." Williams has worked the kinks out of some of the new material on the road: "What Do You Hear in These Sounds?," a song about psychotherapy and self-discovery will be a full-out rocker, while "End of Summer," a melancholy tale about a teenage girl ending an affair with a boy from the city, will keep its spare acoustic feel.

"This album should be done by now, but I'm too much of an environmentalist to put something out just to have product on the shelf.  I find myself balancing what I think people expect of me with my fidelity to the muse. It's often a matter of tricking myself to get past the inner critic so I
can write something I can really love."

. . . .  That's the Dar part of the article; the rest is about Greg Brown.

Thanks to Sally Green for the transcript