Name	Dar Williams
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Dorothy Snowden Williams
Born	April 19, 1967
Origin	Mount Kisco, New York, US
Instrument	VocalsGuitar
Genre	Folk, Folk-pop, Alternative countrySinger-songwriter
Years active	1990–present
Label	Burning Field MusicWaterbug RecordsRazor & Tie
Associated acts	Cry Cry CryJoan Baez
Website	darwilliams.com
Past members	}}

Dar Williams (Dorothy Snowden Williams, born April 19, 1967) is an American singer-songwriter specializing in pop folk.

She is a frequent performer at folk festivals and has toured with such artists as Mary Chapin Carpenter, Patty Griffin, Ani DiFranco, The Nields, Shawn Colvin, Girlyman, Joan Baez, and Catie Curtis.

Biography

Williams was born in Mount Kisco, New York, and grew up in Chappaqua with two older sisters, Meredith and Julie. Her nickname "Dar" originated due to a mispronunciation of "Dorothy" by one of Williams's sisters. Recently, in an interview with WUKY radio, Dar said her parents wanted to name her Darcy, after the character in ''Pride and Prejudice'', and that they intentionally called her "Dar-Dar", which she shortened to "Dar" in school.

In interviews, she has described her parents as "liberal and loving" people who early on encouraged a career in songwriting. Williams began playing the guitar at age nine and wrote her first song two years later. However, she was more interested in drama at the time, and majored in theater and religion at Wesleyan University.

Williams moved to Boston, Massachusetts in 1990 to further explore a career in theater. She worked for a year as stage manager of the Opera Company of Boston, but on the side began to write songs, record demo tapes, and take voice lessons. Her voice teacher encouraged her to try performing at coffeehouses, but her early years performing were made difficult by the intimidating nature of the Boston folk music scene, as well as her own battle with stage fright. In 1993 Williams moved to Northampton, Massachusetts.

Early in Williams's music career, she opened for Joan Baez, who would make her relatively well known by recording some of her songs (Williams also dueted with Baez on ''Ring Them Bells''). Her growing popularity has since relied heavily on community coffeehouses, public radio, and an extensive fan base on the Internet.

Williams recorded her first full album, ''The Honesty Room,'' under her own label, Burning Field Music. Guest artists included Nerissa and Katryna Nields, Max Cohen and Gideon Freudmann. The album was briefly distributed by Chicago-based Waterbug Records. Williams soon secured a licensing-and-distribution deal for Burning Field with Razor and Tie, and in 1995 reissued the album on that label, with two re-recorded bonus tracks. The record went on to become one of the top-selling independent folk albums of the year. 1996's ''Mortal City'', also licensed and distributed with Razor and Tie, received substantial notice, partially due to the fact that it coincided with her tour with Baez. The album again featured guest appearances by the Nields sisters and Freudmann, as well as noted folk artists John Prine, Cliff Eberhardt and Lucy Kaplansky. With that success, Razor & Tie re-released ''The Honesty Room''. By the time of her third release, ''End of The Summer'' (1997), Williams' career had gathered substantial momentum, and the album did remarkably well, given its genre and independent label status.

In 1998, Williams, Richard Shindell and Lucy Kaplansky formed the group Cry Cry Cry as a way to pay homage to some of their favorite folk artists. The band released an eponymous album of covers and toured from 1998 to 2000.

She has since released five more studio albums on the Razor & Tie label (''The Green World'' (2000), ''The Beauty of the Rain'' (2003), ''My Better Self'' (2005), ''Promised Land'' (2008)), and ''Many Great Companions'' (2010), as well as two live albums (''Out There Live'' (2001) and ''Live at Bearsville Theater'' (2007)).

Williams has lent her talent and support to various causes, founding the Snowden Environmental Trust and taking part in many benefit concerts. She performed in a show at Alcatraz with Baez and the Indigo Girls, to benefit the prisoner-rights group Bread and Roses.

As someone who has toured a great deal of the time and had trouble finding suitable dining on the road, Williams was inspired to write and publish a directory of natural food stores and restaurants called ''The Tofu Tollbooth'' in 1994. In 1998 Williams co-authored a second edition with Elizabeth Zipern.

On May 4, 2002, she married Michael Robinson, an old friend from college. Their son, Stephen Gray Robinson, was born on April 24, 2004. She currently resides in Cold Spring, New York.

Dar Williams on songwriting

Williams writes from personal experience, and many of her songs are based on people she grew up with. She doesn't force herself to write, which is an approach she learned in college when she decided that whatever she could do at any given time was enough. She prides herself on having songs that all came from some kind of inspiration.

Williams wants her music to be an "efficient career," something she can do her entire life. She strives to accomplish this by "continuously court[ing] your muse; to keep writing stuff that feels risky about things you believe in, that you're really feeling."

Songs

Recurrent themes in Williams's songs include religion, adolescence, gender issues, anti-commercialism, misunderstood relationships, loss, humor, and geography.

Williams' early work spoke clearly of her upbringing in 1970s and 80s suburbia -- of alienation, and the hypocrisy evident in the post-WWII middle class. On the track "Anthem" on her early tape ''All My Heroes Are Dead'', she sang, "I know there's blood in the pavement and we've turned the fields to sand."

Williams' songs often address gender typing, roles, and inequities. "You're Aging Well" on ''The Honesty Room'' discusses adolescent body image, ageism and self-loathing in excruciating detail. The song ended with the singer finding an unnamed female mentor who pointed her toward a more enlightened and mature point of view. Joan Baez covered the song in concert and later dueted with Williams on tours.

A 2001 article in The Advocate discussed Williams' popularity among LGBT people, writing that among LGBT-supportive straight songwriters, "few manage in their lyrics to dig as deeply or as authentically as... Williams does".

"When I Was a Boy", also on ''The Honesty Room'', uses Williams' own childhood experiences as a tomboy to muse on gender roles and how they limit boys and girls, who then become limited men and women.

"The Christians and Pagans" on ''Mortal City'' simultaneously tackles both religion and sexual orientation through a tale of a lesbian/pagan couple that chooses to spend solstice with the devout Christian uncle of one of the women, thus creating a situation where people who would oppose each other on almost every political and cultural front try to get by on pure politeness. Throughout the song, the family members begin to discover their differences need not estrange them from one another.

In an interview in 2007 on the Food Is Not Love podcast, she said that the song "February" from ''Mortal City'' was one of her songs that she liked best. She referred to the way the song "kept on evolving into, not only what I wanted to say, but what I wanted to say and didn't even know was in there." She liked the way the song "kept on breaking its own rules in a way that art is all about."

Williams' relationship with her family is hinted at through several songs, perhaps most notably in "After All" off ''The Green World''. The song appears to deal mainly with her depression at the age of twenty-one, referring to it as a "winter machine that you go through" repeatedly while "everyone else is spring-bound."

Later work

Williams' recent albums are characterized by more lush arrangements, guest artists, movement away from the tropes and techniques of folk song-writing.

Discography

Albums, EPs

''I Have No History'' (1990 - rare demo tape)

''All My Heroes Are Dead'' (1991 - rare demo tape)

''The Honesty Room'' (1993)

''The Christians and the Pagans'' (1996 - EP)

''Mortal City'' (1996)

''End of The Summer'' (1997)

''What Do You Hear in These Sounds'' (1997, single)

''Cry Cry Cry'' (1998, with Richard Shindell and Lucy Kaplansky)

''The Green World'' (2000)

''Out There Live'' (2001)

''The Beauty of the Rain'' (2003)

''My Better Self'' (2005)

''Live at Bearsville Theater'' (2007)

''Promised Land'' (2008)

''It's Alright'' (EP) (2008)

''Many Great Companions'' (2010)

Contributions

''Women Live from Mountain Stage'' (1996) - "When I Was a Boy"

''Lesbian Favorites: Women Like Us'' (1997) - "As Cool As I Am"

''Hempilation 2: Free the Weed'' (1998) - "Play the Greed"

''Lilith Fair: A Celebration of Women In Music'' (1998) - "What Do You Hear in These Sounds" (recorded live during the 1997 tour)

''Badlands: A Tribute to Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska'' (2000) - "Highway Patrolman"

''Providence'' Soundtrack (2002) - "What Do You Hear in These Sounds"

''Being Out Rocks'' (2002) - "Are You Out There?"

''This Bird Has Flown – A 40th Anniversary Tribute to the Beatles' Rubber Soul'' (2005) - "You Won't See Me"

''Born to the Breed: A Tribute to Judy Collins'' (2008) - "Holly Ann (The Weaver Song)"

Bibliography

''The Tofu Tollbooth'' (1998, co-author)

''Amalee'' (May 2004)

''Lights, Camera, Amalee'' (July 2006)

Notes

External links

Dar Williams Official Site

Dar Williams on MySpace

Dar Williams on YouTube

Category:1967 births Category:American female singers Category:American singer-songwriters Category:American folk musicians Category:American female guitarists Category:Musicians from New York Category:Living people Category:People from Westchester County, New York Category:Wesleyan University alumni Category:American writers Category:American alternative country singers Category:Pop folk singers

da:Dar Williams de:Dar Williams

Name	Ani DiFranco
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Angela Marie DiFranco
Birth date	September 23, 1970
Birth place	Buffalo, New York
Instrument	Guitar, bass guitar, tenor guitar, vocals, percussion, piano
Genre	Folk rock, indie, alternative
Occupation	Singer-songwriter, musician
Years active	1990–present
Label	Righteous Babe
Website	righteousbabe.com
Past members	}}

Ani DiFranco (; born Angela Maria DiFranco on September 23, 1970) is an American singer, guitarist, poet, and songwriter. She has released more than 20 albums, and is widely considered a feminist icon.

Biography

DiFranco was born in Buffalo, New York, to Elizabeth and Dante DiFranco, who had met while attending MIT. She started playing Beatles covers at local bars and busking with her guitar teacher, Michael Meldrum, at the age of nine.

In 1989, DiFranco started her own record company, Righteous Records. Early in her career DiFranco worked with manager Dale Anderson, a writer for the ''Buffalo News'', who started another record label called Hot Wings Records, after the two parted ways, that released similar sounding material. Her self-titled debut album was issued on the label in the winter of 1990. Later, she relocated to New York City, where she took poetry classes at The New School and toured vigorously for the next 15 years, essentially pausing briefly only to record albums.

Righteous Records was renamed Righteous Babe Records in 1994.

In 1998, DiFranco's drummer, Andy Stochansky, left the band to pursue a solo career as a singer-songwriter. Their rapport during live shows is showcased on the 1997 album ''Living in Clip''.

In 2002 her rendition of Greg Brown's "The Poet Game" appeared on ''Going Driftless: An Artists' Tribute to Greg Brown''.

Her father died early in the summer of 2004. In July 2005, DiFranco developed tendonitis and took a hiatus from touring. Her 2005 tour concluded with an appearance at the FloydFest World Music and Genre Crossover festival in Floyd, Virginia. She returned to touring in late April 2006, including a performance at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on April 28 and a performance at the Calgary Folk Music Festival on July 30, 2006.

In 2005 she collaborated with fellow folk singer Dar Williams on "Comfortably Numb", a Pink Floyd cover song from Williams' album ''My Better Self''.

DiFranco's album ''Reprieve'' was released on August 8, 2006. It was previously leaked on iTunes for several hours around July 1, 2006, due to an error saying it was released in 2002. DiFranco performed with Cyndi Lauper on "Sisters of Avalon", a track from Lauper's 2005 collection ''The Body Acoustic''.

On September 11, 2007, she released the first retrospective of her career, titled ''Canon'' and for the first time, a collection of poetry in a book titled ''Verses''.

''Red Letter Year'' was released on September 30, 2008. Says DiFranco about the album:

"When I listen to my new record, I hear a very relaxed me, which I think has been absent in a lot of my recorded canon. Now I feel like I’m in a really good place. My partner Mike Napolitano co-produced this record – my guitar and voice have never sounded better, and that’s because of him. I’ve got this great band and crew. And my baby, she teaches me how to just be in my skin, to do less and be more."

DiFranco performed a live webcast from Ex'pression College for Digital Arts on June 24, 2010. She debuted a selection of new material, including the songs "Which Side Are You On?" (a reworking of the Florence Reece song with different lyrics penned by DiFranco), "Life Boat", "Unworry", "Promiscuity", "Splinter", "Amendment", "See See..." and "Hearse".

In 2010, DiFranco sued hip-hop horrorcore artist Necro for sampling her song, "Used to You" in a response track called "The Asshole Anthem" on his DIE! album. Due to the lawsuit, the album was reissued without the track.

She has continued touring through 2011. As of 2008 her backing band consists of Todd Sickafoose on upright bass, Allison Miller on drums, and Mike Dillon on percussion and vibes. DiFranco returned to the Calgary Folk Music Festival in July 2008.

She is also a poet and has been featured on Def Jam's poetry hour.

DiFranco plans to release an album of new material on January 17, 2012, titled "¿Which Side Are You On?". Collaborations with Pete Seeger, Ivan Neville, Cyril Neville, Skerik, Adam Levy, Righteous Babe recording artist Anaïs Mitchell, CC Adcock, and a host of New Orleans-based horn players known for their work in such outfits as Galactic, Bonerama, and Rebirth Brass Band have been confirmed.

She and her husband currently reside in New Orleans.

Relationships

DiFranco identifies herself as bisexual, and has written songs about love and sex with women and men. She addressed the controversy about her sexuality with the song "In or Out". In 1998, she married sound engineer Andrew Gilchrist in a Unitarian Universalist service in Canada, overseen by folk singer Utah Phillips. DiFranco and Gilchrist divorced five years later.

DiFranco gave birth to a daughter, Petah Lucia DiFranco Napolitano, at her Buffalo home on January 20, 2007. She married the child's father Mike Napolitano, also her regular producer, in 2009.

Critical reception

DiFranco has been a critical darling for much of her career, if not always a commercial one, with a career album average of 72 on Metacritic. DiFranco has been toasted by the ''Buffalo News'' as the "Buffalo's leading lady of rock music." The ''News'' further said:

"Through the Righteous Babe Foundation, DiFranco has backed various grassroots cultural and political organizations, supporting causes ranging from abortion rights to gay visibility."

Starting in 2003, DiFranco was nominated four consecutive times for Best Recording Package at the Grammy Awards, winning in 2004, for ''Evolve''.

On July 21, 2006, DiFranco received the "Woman of Courage Award" at the National Organization for Women (NOW) Conference and Young Feminist Summit in Albany, New York. Past winners have included singer and actress Barbra Streisand and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. DiFranco is one of the first musicians to receive the award, given each year to a woman who has set herself apart by her contributions to the feminist movement.

Music

Guitar style and collaborations

DiFranco's guitar playing is often characterized by a signature staccato style, rapid fingerpicking and many alternate tunings. She delivers many of her lines in a speaking style notable for its rhythmic variation. Her lyrics, which often include alliteration, metaphor, word play and a more or less gentle irony, have also received praise for their sophistication.

Although DiFranco's music has been classified as both folk rock and alternative rock, she has reached across genres since her earliest albums. DiFranco has collaborated with a wide range of artists including musician Prince, who recorded two songs with DiFranco in 1999 ("Providence" on her ''To the Teeth'' album, and "I Love U, but I Don't Trust U Anymore" on Prince's ''Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic'' album); folk musician and social activist Utah Phillips (on ''The Past Didn't Go Anywhere'' in 1996 and ''Fellow Workers'' in 1999); funk and soul jazz musician Maceo Parker; and rapper Corey Parker. She has used a variety of instruments and styles: brass instrumentation was prevalent in 1998's ''Little Plastic Castle''; a simple walking bass in her 1997 cover of Hal David and Burt Bacharach's "Wishin' and Hopin'"; strings on the 1997 live album ''Living in Clip'' and 2004's ''Knuckle Down''; and electronics and synthesisers in 1999's ''To the Teeth'' and 2006's ''Reprieve''. Samples from the track "Coming Up" were used by DJ Spooky in his album Live Without Dead Time, produced for AdBusters Magazine in 2003.

DiFranco herself noted that "folk music is not an acoustic guitar – that's not where the heart of it is. I use the word 'folk' in reference to punk music and rap music. It's an attitude, it's an awareness of one's heritage, and it's a community. It's subcorporate music that gives voice to different communities and their struggle against authority."

Lyrics, politics and religion

Although much of DiFranco's material is autobiographical, it is often also strongly political. Many of her songs are concerned with contemporary social issues such as racism, sexism, sexual abuse, homophobia, reproductive rights, poverty, and war. In 2008, she donated a song to Aid Still Required's CD to assist with the restoration of the devastation done to Southeast Asia from the 2004 Tsunami. The combination of personal and political is partially responsible for DiFranco's early popularity among politically active college students, particularly those of the left wing, some of whom set up fan pages on the web to document DiFranco's career as early as 1994. DiFranco's rapid rise in popularity in the mid-1990s was fueled mostly by personal contact and word of mouth rather than mainstream media.

DiFranco has expressed political views outside of her music. During the 2000 U.S. presidential election, she actively supported and voted for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader. She supported Dennis Kucinich in the 2004 and 2008 Democratic primaries. Kucinich appeared with her at a number of concerts across the country during both primary seasons. DiFranco went on to perform at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

Early in her career, DiFranco considered herself an atheist. On the subject of religion, DiFranco has stated:

"Well, I'm not a religious person myself. I'm an atheist. I think religion serves a lot of different purposes in people's lives, and I can recognize the value of that, you know, the value of ceremony, the value of community, or even just having a forum to get together and talk about ideas, about morals – that's a cool concept. But then, of course, institutional religions are so problematic."

Since becoming a mother and releasing her ''Red Letter Year'' album in 2009, DiFranco has talked in concert about "finding religion". At concerts she has stated that her song "The Atom" is an "alternative Christian proposal". In "The Atom" she sings ”Oh holy is the atom/ The truly intelligent design/ To which all of evolution/ Is graciously aligned.” In Reno in 2008 prior to singing "The Atom", she said "I've kind of gotten religion lately, I took a sweet religion, one I am sort of familiar with and sprayed a can of patriarchy-off and this is what I came up with."

Label independence

DiFranco was one of the first independent artists to own her own label, which has allowed her a considerable degree of creative freedom over the years, including, for example, providing all instrumentals and vocals and recording the album herself at her home on an analog 8-track reel to reel, and handling much of the artwork and packaging design for her 2004 album ''Educated Guess''. She has referenced this independence from major labels in song more than once, including "The Million You Never Made" (''Not A Pretty Girl''), which discusses the act of turning down a lucrative contract, "The Next Big Thing" (''Not So Soft''), which describes an imagined meeting with a label head-hunter who evaluates the singer based on her looks, and "Napoleon" (''Dilate''), which sympathizes sarcastically with an unnamed friend who did sign with a label.

DiFranco has occasionally joined with Prince in discussing publicly the problems associated with major record companies. Righteous Babe Records employs a number of people in her hometown of Buffalo. In a 1997 open letter to ''Ms. magazine'' she expressed displeasure that what she considers a way to ensure her own artistic freedom was seen by others solely in terms of its financial success.

Discography

Studio albums

1990 – ''Ani DiFranco''

1991 – ''Not So Soft''

1992 – ''Imperfectly''

1993 – ''Puddle Dive''

1994 – ''Out of Range''

1995 – ''Not a Pretty Girl''

1996 – ''Dilate''

1998 – ''Little Plastic Castle''

1999 – ''Up Up Up Up Up Up''

1999 – ''To the Teeth''

2001 – ''Revelling/Reckoning''

2003 – ''Evolve''

2004 – ''Educated Guess''

2005 – ''Knuckle Down''

2006 – ''Reprieve''

2008 – ''Red Letter Year''

2012 - ¿Which Side Are You On?

Compilations

1993 – ''Like I Said: Songs 1990–91''

2007 – ''Canon''

Live albums

1994 – ''An Acoustic Evening With''

1994 – ''Women in (E)motion'' (German Import)

1997 – ''Living in Clip''

2002 – ''So Much Shouting, So Much Laughter''

2004 – ''Atlanta – 10.9.03'' (Official Bootleg series)

2004 – ''Sacramento – 10.25.03'' (Official Bootleg series)

2004 – ''Portland – 4.7.04'' (Official Bootleg series)

2005 – ''Boston – 11.16.03'' (Official Bootleg series)

2005 – ''Chicago – 1.17.04'' (Official Bootleg series)

2005 – ''Madison – 1.25.04'' (Official Bootleg series)

2005 – ''Rome – 11.15.04'' (Official Bootleg series)

2006 – ''Carnegie Hall – 4.6.02'' (Official Bootleg series – available in stores)

2007 – ''Boston – 11.10.06'' (Official Bootleg series)

2008 – ''Hamburg – 10.18.07'' (Official Bootleg series)

2009 – ''Saratoga, CA – 9.18.06'' (Official Bootleg series)

2009 – ''Chicago – 9.22.07'' (Official Bootleg series)

2010 – ''Live at Bull Moose Music'' (Limited edition)

EPs

1996 – ''More Joy, Less Shame''

1999 – ''Little Plastic Remixes'' (limited distribution)

2000 – ''Swing Set''

Demos

1989 – ''Demo tape'' (unreleased)

Videos

2002 – ''Render: Spanning Time with Ani DiFranco''

2004 – ''Trust''

2008 – ''Live at Babeville''

Poetry

2004 – "Self-evident: poesie e disegni"

2007 – ''Verses''

Other contributions

2004 – ''WFUV: City Folk Live VII'' – "Bliss Like This"

2006 – Jason Karaban – "Doomed to Make Choices"

2008 – ''The City That Care Forgot'' – Contributed backing vocals to the title track of Dr. John's 2008 album.

2009 – Jason Karaban – "Sobriety Kills"

2010 – Anais Mitchell – "Hadestown"

2011 – Twilight Singers – "Blackbird and the Fox"

2011 – Every Mother Counts – "Present/Infant" (Remix)

See also

Righteous Babe Records

:Category:Righteous Babe artists

References

External links

The Righteous Babe homepage

Ani DiFranco at Rolling Stone

Category:1970 births Category:Living people Category:American composers Category:American female singers Category:American folk guitarists Category:American singer-songwriters Category:American female guitarists Category:American folk singers Category:Feminist musicians Category:Anti-corporate activists Category:Bisexual musicians Category:Musicians from New York Category:Righteous Babe artists Category:American buskers Category:People from Buffalo, New York Category:LGBT musicians from the United States Category:LGBT composers Category:Grammy Award winners Category:American folk rock musicians Category:American atheists

ca:Ani DiFranco cs:Ani DiFranco da:Ani DiFranco de:Ani DiFranco es:Ani DiFranco fr:Ani DiFranco hy:Անի Դիֆրանկո it:Ani DiFranco he:אני דיפרנקו csb:Ani DiFranco nl:Ani DiFranco ja:アーニー・ディフランコ pl:Ani DiFranco pt:Ani DiFranco ru:Дифранко, Ани sk:Ani DiFrancová fi:Ani DiFranco sv:Ani DiFranco