Dar Williams should be a familiar name to anyone who follows folk music. She's been around since 1990, long before I became aware of her! Not sure if I found out about her via the library or one of my daughters. MaryAnn has one of her albums and Shannon might have 2 or 3. Shannon is definitely the one who gets blame/credit for our family getting into contemporary folk. She was a bit of a granola girl in high school. Drove her mom nuts playing Mary Karlzen while getting ready for school in the morning. I enjoyed the genre during the 50's and 60's folk revival that swept the country, but following contemporary folk, is a fairly recent development. I'm certainly no expert on the subject and am continually discovering new artists.
I bought Dar's The Beauty of the Rain album because of the Alison Krauss connection on The One Who Knows and have been a casual fan ever since. I bought a used copy of The Honesty Room a few years ago. That's her '95 breakout album and has Shannon's favorite Dar song When I Was a Boy. I was recently reunited with Dar on BYUtv's excellent The Song That Changed My Life. This is an excellent series with top notch production and videography, beautiful in HD. The Dar episode really pulled me in and is a particular favorite. Watching the video and listening to Dar's intelligent commentary re-ignited my interest so I went to her website and aquainted myself with her works in greater depth. 2010's Many Great Companions really jumped out. It looked like a perfect album for someone like me who isn't likely to buy up all her albums, but appreciates her better known songs. I was also intrigued by the album's contributers, Sean and Sara Watkins of Nickel Creek, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Patty Larkin and Gary Louris of The Jayhawks. It's a 2 cd album. The first cd consists of re-works of 12 of her best songs featuring the aforementioned artists. These are stripped down arrangements which naturally appeals to me. The second cd has 20 original recordings drawn from her previous works. I was hoping the library would have a copy so I could make an intelligent decision of whether to purchase or not. I got lucky and found they did indeed have one and have been giving the album a thorough listen. Turns out to be a perfect album for me. That I would like the first disk is a given and the second one is a perfect overview of her body of work, so it's a definite must have!
Rating: 4 stars
Here's a less than perfect video of Dar singing one of my favorites from The Honesty Room, The Babysitter's Here. I chose it because it shows what a hoot Dar is in a live setting. Love the chimey sound of her new Collings guitar (featured on the BYUtv episode and most of her latest work including Many Great Companions)! Hope to get to see her in person some day soon!
