Your Country's Right Here: Dar Williams Turns to "Gods" for Insights
posted in: Country • Music News
Dar Williams has always been celebrated as one of contemporary folk music’s best storytellers, but now she’s even bested herself.
In the Time of Gods, scheduled for April 17 release, gives a fresh twist to social commentary by exploring it in the context of Greek mythology. The idea for her ninth album and some of the songs came to her as she drove through inclement Canadian weather.
“One of the advantages of me thinking in terms of Greek myths is that a lot of tempestuous weathers events are grand and there’s a lot of grandiosity (in society) right now,” she said. “There is panic and classic, epic [power] struggles¦Rather than thinking ‘Oh, dear, the sky is falling and everything is terrible, put it more in the framework of [ancients] time.”
Taking such a wide-angle view of life is nothing new for this much-celebrated folk-pop singer-songwriter. Although she beganher career writing and singing something akin to short stories, her interpretations have deepened significantly in the past several years.
It’s easy to understand the deepening when you consider Williams’ life experience and that doesn’t mean age. It means the careful view she takes of her life and what affects her, her husband and two children.
Just last week, Williams talked about her vision of sustainable local lifestyles to an audience at the renowned Sarah Lawrence College.
“It’s important to think of the big picture to see what’s ahead and what is behind,” she said. “We have somuch power.”
That power has deepened for Williams as she’s built her life and career and connected with so many other people. Together networks such as hers can tackle and effect change on a host of issues.
“I met somebody who wants to bring electric cars to one of the [major] festivals this summer,” she said. “I know the people who run the festival and know people who know people and so I could shake a few trees and connect people to help each other.”
Connecting with others seems a natural for Williams, who said she got so caught up in touring the past few years that she didn’t cut out time to record.
Now that her new album is ready to be released, she said she’s playing some of the songs”including the recently released single “I am the One Who Will Remember” on her current tour.
“I am so used to relying on my show [to reach fans],” she said of her recording absence. “When they announced this new album, some of the fans said they were very excited. I’m glad for that and I like the fact there is the energy for this new music.”
Find out more about Dar Williams, including her upcoming tour dates, on her Web site.