“Hummingbird Highway” (Righteous Babe Records)
By Eleni P. Austin
Putting on a new Dar Williams record on is the musical equivalent of welcoming an old friend home after a long journey. The irony is, Dar’s ambitions were never music-oriented, her dream was to be a playwright.
Dorothy Snowdon Williams was born in Mount Kisco, and grew up in Chappaqua, the youngest of three sisters. A sisterly mispronunciation of her first name resulted in the nickname “Dar.” She started playing guitar as a kid and realized songwriting came rather effortlessly. But, for her, music was a form of catharsis. A way to clear out the mental and emotional cobwebs. By the time she entered college, she was sure the theater was her destiny.
At Wesleyan, her majors were theater and religion, becoming a professional playwright was her goal. Post-matriculation, she relocated to Boston and worked for a year as a stage manager for the city’s opera company. But the pull to make music became an all-consuming passion. So, she redirected her energies into playing and writing her own songs. She began demo-ing her music and by the early ‘90s, she had self-released a couple of tapes and sold them at her shows.
On the strength of those recordings, she inked a deal with the respected indie label Razor & Tie. Her first official long-player, The Honesty Room, arrived in 1994. Her single, “When I Was A Boy,” was a break-out hit on Triple A (Adult Album Alternative- I know, ick) radio. The song resonated with past and present tomboys and anyone else adventurous enough to let their own freak-flag fly. Folk legend Joan Baez became an early and enthusiastic champion, not only mentoring Dar, but also recording several of her songs throughout the years.
In the ensuing years, Dar has written and recorded albums at a pretty quick clip. Across 11 studio albums, three EPs and three live sets, her music has been defined by her quicksilver wit, her literary lyrics and her sharp sense of songcraft. Apart from her solo career, she made time to team up with fellow singer-songwriters Richard Shidell and Lucy Kaplansky. As CryCryCry the trio’s eponymous debut consisted of favorite Folk covers.
Since 2013, she has conducted songwriting retreats, she has also written two Young Adult novels and published an urban planning study, What I Found In A Thousand Towns: A Traveling Musician’s Guide To Rebuilding America’s Communities-One Coffee Shop, Dog Run & Open Mic Night At A Time.
Dar had nearly finished her latest book, Writing A Song That Matters, when, thanks to Covid-19, the world suddenly stopped turning. Her new album was also close to complete, but the pandemic postponed her tour and the album release indefinitely. It finally surfaced in late 2021. Even though it had been six years since her last effort, “I’ll Meet You Here” seemed to pick up right where she left off. Critics hailed it as wry and reflective, drilling down on her trenchant observations and memorable melodies.
Big news in the Dar-osphere is she recently signed with Righteous Babe Records, the indefatigable Indie label started by her pal, Folk-Punk Icon Ani DiFranco 35 years ago. It seems like a perfect fit, the artist-friendly label is home to Ani, as well as a roster of adventurous acts like Gracie & Rachel, Resistance Revival Chorus and Kristen Ford. Now Dar has returned with her first Righteous Babe effort, Hummingbird Highway.
The opening triptych of tracks deftly displays Dar’s ability to leap genres in a single bound. The record kicks into gear with the title-track. Jangly guitars partner with upright bass, cello accents, whirring keys and a locomotive rhythm. Dar wraps her warm-hearted contralto around lyrics seemingly welcome home a conquering hero: “The Columbines are coming up down by the gate, I’ve poured out the sugar water on a broken plate, and I’ve dressed up my best dolls to celebrate, you’re coming home from the Hummingbird Highway, but the hour has come and the hour has passed and just when I think they’ve gotten you at last, yeah, the pirates have tied you to a galleon’s mast, you’re coming home from the Hummingbird’s Highway.” Despite the rollicking melody, the song feels suffused in midlife malaise: “…And I hope that you’re happy, but I know that you’re not, back from the Hummingbird Highway, you say it’s the older you feel, it’s the older I get, your highest of highs are your deepest regret, and no one ever says if you’ve gotten there yet, can’t blame it on the Hummingbird Highway.” What begins as a heartfelt homecoming seems to end with a tender farewell.
“All Is Come Undone” downshifts to a darker place. Stark piano notes accompany the first verse which feels shrouded in mystery: “No one knows what happened on the hill, and the lady’s relative, I will ask you for your patience, I will balance all the ledgers you require, I know your gates were trampled when her cows escaped into your shire.” Plangent guitars tentatively wash over ticklish keys, wily bass lines and a ticking rhythm. Densely detailed lyrics like “But if I am to understand what you have said, you have declined my offer to install her cousin in her stead, I ask forgiveness at this time, I am humbled by your plea, you want her to return, as she is more than just her patronage, she is a daughter of your village,” play out with a Dickensian edge.
She takes a sharp left turn on “Tu Sais Le Printemps” (French for “You know the Spring”). With a Gallic shrug of her shoulders, she whips a breezy confection that splits the difference between Parisian chanson and Brazilian Bossa Nova. Frisky piano notes dart through the mix, matched by flatulent flugelhorn, thumpy bass, shimmering guitars and a percussive kick. The light and airy arrangement and Dar’s stacked, sunshiny harmonies align with cheerful lyrics that hint at an unexpected romance: “We will walk to the bridge, where the river bends and flows, and the moon will arise with the blush of a rose, and of maddening times, we will laugh and say that’s how it goes, we say it’s the end, but here is the Springtime again…you’re taking my hand, you’re brushing your lips. the season is young, awakening.” On the break, Coquetish piano tangles with a flirty trumpet solo, magnifying the continental drift.
Midway through the record, Dar recalibrates Richard and Linda Thompson’s “I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight.” She switches out the original’s see-saw tempo, opting Twangy guitars, Honky-Tonk piano, walking bass lines, whooshy Hammond B3, a jittery back-beat and a tambourine shake. The lyrics offer an antidote to the workaday blues: “I’m so tired of working every day, now the weekend’s come, I’m going to throw my troubles away, if you’ve got cab fare, mister, you’ll do alright, I want to see the bright lights tonight.” A sousaphone fanfare underscores each verse, and she rejiggers a couple of familiar lines with Sir Richard’s permission: “A couple of drunken Santas rolling on the floor, are just the kind of mess I’m looking for, I’m gonna dream ‘til Monday comes in sight, I want to see the bright lights tonight. A wiry guitar solo barrels through the break on this rollicking, Rockabilly Rave-Up.
For Dar, the personal has always been political. That tradition continues here on a couple of tracks, “Put The Coins On His Eyes” and “Maryland, Maryland” The former is a bit of a back porch ramble, swooping fiddle, barbed slide guitar, bucolic banjo and nimble bass lines are tethered to a skip-to-my-lou beat. Lyrics shift from a bit of ancient Greek mythology to a bloody and violent history from the early 20th century, the battle to unionize the labor force: “When the Wagner Act was signed, a better future was in sight, as a union, we would fight, and the workers would unite, but when the bosses doubled-down, our friend would keep our spirits strong, said we knew our right from wrong, and to a family we belonged/When he dies, when he dies, put the coins on his eyes, in a fine suit, neatly pressed, let the man get some rest.” As the track winds down, the buoyant Bluegrass arrangement gives way to just banjo and percussion. Sanctified harmonies intertwine adding a bit of Gospel heft.
The latter came about when Maryland finally voted to retire their Confederate-tinged state song, “Maryland, My Maryland.” Dar’s pal, Maryland Congressman Jaime Raskin encouraged her to write a new state anthem and sent her a list of all the things he loved about the Free State. But somewhere along the line, it became an homage to the indefatigable Congressman. A propulsive rocker, reedy Hammond B3 runs collide with gritty electric riffs, swinging acoustic notes, fluid bass lines and a chugging shuffle rhythm. It offers a pocket history of the state, name-checking Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass and Rachel Carson. The exuberant chorus effortlessly captures Raskin’s boundless enthusiasm: “Maryland, Maryland, Maryland, Maryland, I became congressman, for the eighth of Maryland,” even as the verse gets down to business: “And so I learned quickly, what they had in store, every job I said I’d take they would give me more, when I asked Elijah Cummings how I’d see it through, He said ‘there’s always time to do the work you’re supposed to do.’” It’s a playful and passionate tribute, wrapped in an indelible hook.
Other interesting tracks include the somber and spiritual “Sacred Mountain.” Then there’s “The Way I Go,” a mid-tempo groover that makes no apologies: “The way I go every day is fast or slow, call it High Art, could be low, and it’s what I know, tide comes in and my footprints disappear, but I was there and I am here, and it’s what I know.”
The last tracks that bookend this 10 song-set are the loveliest. “What Bird Did You See” blends sun-dappled guitars, fluttery keys and subterranean bass. There’s a keening quality to Dar’s voice as lyrics champion the ephemeral joy of bird-watching: “And at the window when the Sparrows fly a way, a single Cardinal seemed to know he had to stay, he had to be the bright vermillion in the gray, while the world just goes about it’s day, as the ground beneath you falls away, in the presence of this absence, was there one bright flash, a simple song, a revery, what bird did you see?”
Finally, “Olive Tree” is the record’s most ambitious track. Cascading piano, lonesome pedal steel, willowy guitars, angular upright bass and lowing cello are anchored a chunky back-beat. Lyrics time-travel from Ancient Greece to present day, charting a course from the autocracy of Kings to, well, the wannabe Monarch busily gold-leafing every surface of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. The one constant remains the olive tree, which symbolizes peace, longevity, wisdom, prosperity and resilience: “While the self-appointed tyrants try to tear it all apart, the olive tree grows, the light of a constant star, we’re printing our books, we’re pressing the fruit, in the light of the sun and coming up from the roots.” Taking a page from Joni’s playbook, this is Dar, telling us to get back to the garden.
For more than three decades, Dar Williams’ music has remained reliably wonderful. By turns clever and kind, reflective and sagacious. This time out, she breaks out of her comfort zone, adding an array of colors and textures to her sonic palette. Hummingbird Highway offers an aural antidote to tumultuous times. The perfect companion for the next 1125 days.
