Dar Williams

Wheels Off with Rhett Miller

Rhett Miller

Music, Performing Arts, Arts

4.9 • 609 Ratings

🗓️ 6 February 2024

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Singer-songwriter Dar Williams joins Rhett to talk about the process of writing songs that matter, the importance of finding a supportive community, and tells Rhett about the music she’s currently writing. The two discuss prioritizing authenticity over algorithmic success in today’s creative environment, and Dar offers sage advice for aspiring musicians. 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. Her most recent album is 2021’s I’ll Meet You Here. Her book, How To Write A Song That Matters is available now. Dar Williams website Follow Dar @darwilliamstour Rhett Miller website Follow Rhett @rhettmiller Wheels Off is hosted and produced by Rhett Miller. Executive producer Kirsten Cluthe. Editing by Matt Dwyer. Music by OLD 97’s. Episode artwork by Mark Dowd. Show logo by Tim Skirven. Distributed in partnership with Osiris Media. This podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also ask Alexa to play it. Revisit previous episodes of Wheels Off with guests Rosanne Cash, Rob Thomas, Jeff Tweedy, The Milk Carton Kids, and more. If you like what you hear, please leave us a rating or review. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Osiris
0:02.0	Welcome to Wheels Off, a show about the messy reality of the creative life.
0:09.3	I'm Rhett Miller.
0:23.7	Dar Williams is a Dar Williams is a national treasure.
0:26.9	She's widely known as a folk singer and songwriter.
0:31.1	She leads songwriting retreats,
0:33.4	something about which we talk extensively during the course of this conversation.
0:37.9	I myself having recently embarked upon hosting my own first retreat.
0:42.7	She is a font of information about that and so many things.
0:47.6	She's written a couple of kids' books a while back, more recently a couple of nonfiction books,
0:53.8	the most recent of which is called How to Write a Song
0:57.1	That Matters. I recently finished it and cannot recommend it highly enough. It's a great book.
1:05.1	Useful, I think, probably to songwriters and non-songwriters alike. It's got so much just deep information,
1:16.6	thoughtful takes on creativity and how we approach decision-making, how we treat ourselves in our
1:26.7	internal monologues, and how we work with others
1:31.1	in a community of songwriters, but just in a community. If I had to sort of point out one
1:39.1	through line, one thread that has run throughout her songwriting and prose writing career,
1:46.6	and say that she tackles the idea of community in a really thoughtful, useful way.
1:55.0	Please welcome to Wheels Off, the great Dar Williams.
1:58.2	Welcome to Wheels Off, Dar Williams. Hello, how are you?
2:01.7	I'm terrific. How are you? Great. Thank you so much for being on for the edification of our
2:06.5	listeners from where are you logging in? Mid-Hudson Valley. So on the east side of the Hudson River.
	...

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