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Quote by Dar Williams

“What happened on "As Cool As I Am" was, you know how in the `90s, "the personal is political, the political is personal"? That was a really big thing. Choices you made about how you recorded and what instruments you used and how much real versus how much synthetic. Those were choices that were seen as very political at the time.”

Quote by Dar Williams

Author

Dar Williams is an American singer-songwriter born in April 1967. Her musical style blends folk, pop, and rock elements, and she is known for her distinctive voice and heartfelt lyrics. Williams' music covers a wide range of themes, including love, nature, and life philosophy. more

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“I remember doing "As Cool As I Am" and Steve Miller, the producer, saying "I really hear a drum loop here. I want to play it for you." When I wrote it, I thought, "This isn't going to sound very folky. I don't think it's going to go with mandolins and banjos." Then he played the loop for me and it sounded right.”

Thinking Want Play Remember Sound Producers Loops Banjos

Author:Dar Williams

“The rest of the songs on the album [Mortal City ] have spare arrangements on them. Steve [Miller], really loved that. He'd just come off of a project with someone who basically had to mask the fact that there were no songs there with production. He said, "Oh, my God, you have real songs here!"”

Said Real Facts Song Cities Projects Albums Productions Mortals Mask Spares Arrangements

Author:Dar Williams

“I would push for more production and Steve Miller would say, "Why do you want to have more production when you have real songs? You don't want to cover up the song."”

Want Real Song Productions Cover Ups

Author:Dar Williams

“A lot of the songs are pretty unmasked. If you listen to "As Cool As I Am," it's not all that different from what you were hearing from Ani DiFranco and some of the other indie women artists of the time. It was still in that context, still seen as folk music.”

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Author:Dar Williams

“I went from having three little jobs that I strung together to being on the road full-time; having some savings that my managers told me to spend. You fly all over the country opening for these other people. You pay a publicist to get some press while you're establishing yourself and you will be solvent in this career forevermore.”

People Littles Country Together Jobs Three Pay Careers Presses Opening Saving Managers Savings Publicists

Author:Dar Williams

“I spent a year pulling all-nighters and driving around in a really tiny fuel-efficient car relying on the kindness of strangers and seeing this incredible range of landscapes throughout the United States. That's what happened with The Honesty Room. It was a huge night and day switch.”

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Author:Dar Williams

“I started going out with one of my managers and he really grew me up in a lot of ways. He introduced me not just to being a full-time traveler, which I was, but he was also really very interested in history and art and continued to open my eyes up to regional history; less splashy histories. He was interested in historical societies and stuff like that. He introduced me to a way of looking at the way communities form that is the foundation for the book that I've just finished writing that has to do with what I see as effective community-building wherever I've been traveling.”

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Author:Dar Williams

“Basically, I have found that people who have tried to start communities out of good feelings or hippie-dippie abstract concepts of love - it doesn't work. But if you just concentrate on what is the identity of your town - its waterfalls, its battles, its notable mill strike or those things - you dig into what your town is from its rock formations to its history to its food. Then this thing called community happens all the time.”

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Author:Dar Williams

“There's tons of anger and angst and peculiarity and eccentricity, and good towns know that that's okay. But towns that are kind of bullshit don't know what to do with all those feelings.”

Knows Kind Feelings Okay Towns Bullshit Angst Eccentricity

Author:Dar Williams

“The kind of organic wave, the way that waves move, and I'm not just talking about feminism, the way that a social movement might rise like a wave. It's harder to build any kind of wave now. Things are important to you and then they recede within a day. That's the only thing that keeps me from believing that there's going to be any one organic big wave; although the Americana (music) thing has been happening for a while.”

Way Believe Kind Has Beens Important Bigs Might Moving Social Talking Feminism Movement Happenings Harder Wave Social Movements Americana

Author:Dar Williams