Dar Williams & Amy Ray Band

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Dar Williams’ lyrics contain bouquets of optimism, delivered on melodies alternating between beguiling lightness and understated gravity. Williams strongly believes that all of us possess our own power and ability to achieve, and she rejects the exceptionalism that encourages us to “admire that yonder star,” while making us feel small and insignificant; unworthy of shining on our own but hoping to catch enough distant light to inspire some tiny accomplishment. Williams has always been very interested in how to control our future and this album has to do with the fact that at some point, you just can’t.

Like everyone else, Williams spent 2020 in that state of non-control. She and longtime producer Stewart Lerman tracked most of the album, her 12th studio recording, in November of 2019. In late February of 2020, she cut the title tune in Woodstock with bassist Gail Ann Dorsey and Larry Campbell, who produced the track and played guitars, pedal steel and twangy baritone guitar. When told they had to postpone a mid-March mixing date, Campbell said he wasn’t feeling well anyway. Turns out he’d contracted a serious case of COVID-19. That was a clear sign that at some point, you have to meet life where it meets you …the common thread throughout that these songs, the willingness to meet life as it arrives.

Dar Williams was always in the right place at the right time for the success she’s had over a 25+-year career. She rose out of the vibrant mid-90’s Boston scene, inspired by the eclectic influences of alt-rockers, Berklee jazz musicians, slam poets, and folk artists, like Patty Griffith, Melissa Ferrick, the Throwing Muses, Vance Gilbert, and Jonatha Brooke. After a year of touring non-stop with her first album, The Honesty Room, in 1994, she was invited by Joan Baez to tour in Europe and The United States.

“Good and bad things happen, and it’s not necessarily a reward or indictment. I’ve just got to meet it.” Williams observes. “Like, I’m bringing my whole life to this moment; it will surprise me, challenge me, show me where I was wrong, even make a fool out of me, but my job is to show up and not take adversity personally. Real happiness doesn't have to feel like Snoopy dancing with Woodstock; it can just be knowing you have the resilience to meet whatever comes to you. I will call that a good life."

Amy Ray Band

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The tenth solo effort from Amy Ray, If It All Goes South is an album born from deep devotion tocreating music that strengthens the soul. Over the course of 10 gracefully crafted and galvanizingtracks, the Georgia-bred musician reflects on our collective history and shares her vision for a betterfuture, threading every song with both intensely personal storytelling and clear-eyed observation.Recorded live to tape at Nashville’s Sound Emporium and mixed to tape by Tedeschi Trucks Bandsound engineer Bobby Tis, the album owes much of its freewheeling vitality to the potent chemistrybetween Ray and her longtime bandmates (including guitarist Jeff Fielder, a Seattle-based musicianknown for his work with artists like Mark Lanegan) as well as such esteemed guests as Brandi Carlile,Allison Russell, The Highwomen’s Natalie Hemby, I’m With Her, and more.In keeping with the spirited eclecticism that’s always defined Ray’s work (the cathartic punk of her2001 solo debut Stag, the finespun country of 2014’s Goodnight Tender), If It All Goes Southencompasses everything from gospel to punkabilly to folk, each handled with equal parts unrulyingenuity and extraordinary precision. Mainly produced by her frequent collaborator Brian Speiser,the album brings that unbridled sound to Ray’s nuanced exploration of matters both emotional (loss,family life, the work of living with joyful intention in endlessly chaotic times) and political (theclimate crisis, racial equity, homophobia’s poisonous impact). Rooted in the warmly incisivesongwriting Ray has long brought to her role as co-founder of Indigo Girls—the seminal folk duonow in their fifth decade—If It All Goes South ultimately provides the kind of forward-thinkingperspective needed to carry on with purpose, hope, and irrepressible joy.