Dar Williams

Artist's Website

Williams’ growth as a person over her 15-year career has gone hand-in-hand with her evolution as an artist. Raised in Chappaqua, N.Y., and educated at Wesleyan University, Williams spent 10 years living in the thriving artistic community of Northampton, Mass., where she began to make the rounds on the coffeehouse circuit. Joan Baez, an early fan of her music, took Williams out on the road and recorded several of her songs. In 1995, two years after self-releasing The Honesty Room, she signed with Razor & Tie Entertainment, beginning a long and mutually beneficial relationship. Along with her six studio albums — also including The Green World (2000) and The Beauty of the Rain (2003), each amply represented on the balanced Many Great Companions — she’s also released the onstage document Out There Live (2001) and the DVD Live at Bearsville Theater (2007).

At the core of Williams’ work is a belief in the innate ability of people to make a better world, the product of countless observations in her travels and conversations with her fans. If anything, her optimism has intensified as she’s crisscrossed America during the tough times of recent years. “My big secret,” she says, with a twinkle in her eye, “is that we are gonna make it — but we’ll be the last to know.”