Dar Williams: Recapturing the Spirit of Her Folk Heroes

The 1960s are not a vivid memory for singer-songwriter Dar Williams. She’s just 28, and she grew up in New York’s suburbs, where the times were definitely not a-changin’.

“I come, basically, from a petri dish,” she says with a laugh. “A very controlled environment.”

Still, Williams feels a deep connection with the folk music that emerged from the decade’s great social, political and cultural hubbub. The influence of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Judy Collins and other troubadours led her to pick up an acoustic guitar to craft her own neo-folk songs.

“I was very cynical about it for a while, [thinking] that it was just a big marketing scheme that I fell for,” she says of the era’s continuing legend. “But it did seem that there was this sense of possibility, and a real sense that where you stood on life-and-death issues was a very important thing.”

Williams’ own approach to that musical philosophy has led to growing audiences and critical acclaim for her two albums, including the just-released “Mortal City” (see accompanying review).

With rare exceptions, Williams--who will open for Baez at a Wiltern Theatre concert Friday--delivers messages that are more personal than political, focused on private moments, wry observation and everyday feminism.

“I tend to keep my politics more to my checkbook,” says Williams, defending her seemingly mundane subject matter during a phone interview from her home in western Massachusetts. “It always scares me when I’m feeling like I’m banging a drum. The fact that there are more outlet stores and Wal-Marts on the outskirts of towns really affects us culturally and is an important thing to write about.”

On the new album, those subjects range from intimate scenes of imperfect romance to the subversive humor of “The Christians and the Pagans,” the story of a daughter who brings her lesbian lover home for the holidays.

Williams now lives in the hills of an old mill town, a mix of quasi-rural and suburbia, where she sees “all the hippies that went off and built their own houses and got really into the politics of hemp.”

She first moved to Massachusetts after college with the hope of becoming a playwright or directing opera. But while she was working at the Opera Company of Boston, she felt the urge to write and perform her own music, reflecting the folk and folk-rock she had discovered as a teenager.

What followed were two years of coffeehouses, college shows, open-mike nights, opening spots and tip-jar gigs.

She finally connected with a sound that mixed classic folk storytelling with contemporary themes. And she sang with a voice that was as confident expressing strength as aching vulnerability.

Among the songs that emerged were the reminiscing “The Babysitter’s Here” and “When I Was Boy,” which explores the prices paid and innocence lost as children grow into the gender roles of adulthood.

Both were recorded for her 1995 debut album, “The Honesty Room,” which first brought Williams to national attention.

She now looks to the careers of veteran folkies such as Baez, John Gorka and John Prine (who duets with Williams on “Mortal City”) as examples for her own music.

“They didn’t use folk music as a springboard to another genre,” Williams says. “They really made a life out of just doing this music and sticking with actual venues they started with: the same church coffeehouses, the same small theaters.

“These are people who are making a living and seeming to make a good living. It really is a lifestyle and a lifework.”

* Dar Williams opens for Joan Baez on Friday at the Wiltern Theatre, 3790 Wilshire Blvd., 8 p.m. $32.50 and $27.50. (213) 380-5005.