​Dar Williams (from the album I’ll Meet You Here

​Dar Williams (from the album I’ll Meet You Here available on BMG/Renew Records) (by Dave Steinfeld)
 
In the press release that accompanied the advance copy of her new album, I’ll Meet You Here, Dar Williams says ‘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’. Wise words, indeed. And they inform Williams’ tenth studio release (and first in a record six years). Her last album, Emerald, was arguably her best. And while I’ll Meet You Here isn’t quite up to that standard, it’s still a worthy addition to her catalog. Dar Williams began recording the album in late 2019 with guitarist Larry Campbell, bassist Gail Ann Dorsey, and longtime producer Stewart Lerman. When told they would have to postpone the mixing date they’d set for mid-March, Campbell mentioned that he wasn’t feeling well anyway. As it turns out, the guitarist had been hit with a severe case of COVID-19. By now, it was clear that Williams would not be able to release the new disc in 2020. That sense of uncertainty, and of meeting the challenges that life throws your way, is one of the themes that runs through I’ll Meet You Here. ‘At some point, you have to meet life where it meets you’ says Williams. ‘I think what the songs all have in common is the willingness to meet life as it arrives’.
 
Another of the album’s themes seems to be aging. Dar Williams kicks things off with “Time, Be My Friend” (which gives the disc its title) and wraps them up with a new version of “You’re Aging Well” — which first appeared on her 1993 debut, The Honesty Room. It’s interesting to hear her re-record a song that she wrote in her 20s now that she’s in her 50s — to come full circle as it were. And this new version of “You’re Aging Well” benefits from the sparse accompaniment — just Williams’ vocal and Bryn Roberts’ piano. Other highlights include the excellent “Berkeley,” “Magical Thinking” and “Little Town.” The latter song is another of Williams’ insightful snapshots of suburbia. It was inspired by her 2017 book What I Found in a Thousand Towns: A Traveling Musician’s Guide to Rebuilding America’s Communities — One Coffee Shop, Dog Run & Open Mike Night at a Time. Indeed, “Little Town” tackles covert racism and generational rigidity and serves as the album’s centerpiece. All in all, I’ll Meet You Here is a strong effort that never outstays its welcome.  (by Dave Steinfeld)
 
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