Muddy waters

Dar Williams gets her hands dirty

by Joan Anderman

The cover photograph on folksinger Dar Williams's new End of the Summer (Razor & Tie) is a sepia-toned portrait of the artist as a gentle soul: moving through a grove of trees in a long, simple dress, red hair flowing, staring intently at something just out of view. It's only after a few beats that you notice her hands, which are obscured by shadows and caked with black mud.

The quietly startling image is a visual metaphor for Williams's music: graceful and lovely and thick with dark artifacts unearthed by the singer's relentless dig into the convoluted strata of her psyche. Here is one sweet soprano, that photo murmurs, who is not afraid to get her hands dirty. No topic -- and they range from crappy birthdays and 50-minute hours to rebel disc jockeys and clinical depression -- is too small, too big, or too personal for Williams's scrutiny. This is, after all, the artist who named her first album The Honesty Room.

The plain-language confessional set to a simple, pleasing melody is, of course, a cornerstone of modern folk music. What Dar Williams -- who performs this Friday at Sanders Theatre -- has brought to that tradition, on three albums released in as many years, is a blend of wisdom, humor, and beauty that cuts to the heart (thanks also, in large measure, to dead-on lyrics that owe more to playwrights than to preachers). End of the Summer, however, finds her venturing into new and historically dicy territory for a folkie -- arranged, produced, radio-friendly pop rock. It doesn't exactly approach the magnitude of Dylan plugging in at Newport, but there will inevitably be cries of treason and accusations of commercial sellout. So how does a guitar-strumming troubadour justify the bashing drums, vocal effects, and tandem electric guitars?

"I think because a lot of the new songs have to do with adolescence, that the music was just going in the direction of those kinds of rhythms, you know, harking back to the pop music of my upbringing," Williams explains over the phone from her home in Northampton. "We learned from Mortal City [her previous album] that if you write something that's closer to a pop song or a rock song, you can't just disguise it with a bunch of mandolins and say it's really a folk song. I'm asking the folk audience to take me on my terms with this album. Just because this is a more arranged and sometimes more rocking thing doesn't mean I'm not present in it. And it doesn't mean it's a commercial venture . . . It's a departure, but it's also just the next set of songs."

About half the tunes on End of the Summer revolve around the familiar pensive picking and melancholy musings. But it's the (comparatively) driving, mesmerizing first single, "Are You Out There," a combination ode to late-night radio heroes and indictment of suburban apathy, that's being added to playlists and is responsible for moving 30,000 copies of the CD in the first six weeks of release. Compare that with 70,000 units moved in a year and a half for Mortal City and it's clear that the louder, brasher Dar Williams is reaching beyond the confines of her devoted fan base. A coveted opening slot on Sarah McLachlan's fall tour spells another giant step into the mainstream.

The album sounds as transitional as the status of Williams's career. Shot through with folk sensibilities, End of the Summer is neither as sophisticated and finely crafted as Shawn Colvin's breakthrough, A Few Small Repairs, nor as savvy and spirited as Amy Rigby's Diary of a Mod Housewife. But Williams's musical evolution has less to do with achieving a state of pop-rock grace than with telling her stories. "You know, what comes out comes out. If a song is written with an intent to isolate something and look at it and have it be something that will enrich people's lives for its existence and powers of observation, you've got to say, `This is the thing that I value, not a thing I'm doing to be successful.' "

True to her convictions, Williams -- who's poised on the verge of making her record company very, very happy -- is tripping on the heels of her Muse down an entirely different path for the next album. "The stuff I'm writing now has to do with this sort of magical few years I've had where I've been able to more and more appreciate how nature helps us grow and transform. It's gonna be a very different album."

Dar Williams appears with a large, loud band this Friday, September 19, at 8 p.m., at Harvard University's Sanders Theatre. Richard Shindell opens the show. Call 496-2222 for tickets.