Today's the release date of the DVD (which I don't yet have, but will be ordering soon) - zippity!
One of the most acclaimed singer-songwriters of her generation, Dar Williams has been engaging audiences with her musical artistry since the early 1990s when she rose from the Northeast coffeehouse circuit to the national spotlight.
Having released seven albums, including 2005’s critically acclaimed MY BETTER SELF, her first-ever DVD, Live at the Bearsville Theater, provides abundant evidence of Williams’ tuneful gifts, charming humor and empathic nature. Playing her acoustic guitar, Williams presents sixteen songs, including most of her best-known works, in solo fashion or accompanied by her longtime backing band. Williams offers to the Bearsville audience triumphant renditions of favorites from her early career like the classic “Iowa (Traveling III),” “The Babysitter’s Here,” “When I was a Boy,” “As Cool As I Am” and the gorgeous “February,” along with recent songs like the resplendent “Spring Street,” “Beauty of the Rain” and a new song “The Easy Way.”
Few performers create a bond from the stage with an audience like Williams does. Because her songs succeed with storytelling—intimate, honest and whimsical travails and triumphs—listeners lean forward to catch the details, which are copious and meaningful.
Williams devotion to activism remains strong as ever. Her causes celèbrés range from environmental protection to social action; she has helped spearhead grassroots organizations around the country alongside her legions of fans. Dar has also branched off into the publishing realm as an author of two novels for young readers, Amalee and Lights, Camera, Amalee, both published by Scholastic Press. Williams continues to tour regularly; a new album is due out in 2008.
LIVE AT BEARSVILLE THEATER track listing:
1. When I Was a Boy
2. The Ocean
3. The One Who Knows
4. The Christians and the Pagans
5. February
6. Iowa
7. The Babysitter's Here
8. As Cool As I Am
9. Spring Street
10. If I Wrote You
11. Mercy of The Fallen
12. Are You Out There
13. Beauty of the Rain
14. The Easy Way
15. After All
16. Ripple
http://www.darwilliams.net/ (fansite)
BOOK(S): Amalee by Dar Williams
POEM: Ode by Arthur O'Shaughnessy
We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams; --
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams; --
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample a kingdom down.
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample a kingdom down.
We, in the ages lying,
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself in our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself in our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.
A breath of our inspiration
Is the life of each generation;
A wondrous thing of our dreaming
Unearthly, impossible seeming --
The soldier, the king, and the peasant
Are working together in one,
Till our dream shall become their present,
And their work in the world be done.
Is the life of each generation;
A wondrous thing of our dreaming
Unearthly, impossible seeming --
The soldier, the king, and the peasant
Are working together in one,
Till our dream shall become their present,
And their work in the world be done.
They had no vision amazing
Of the goodly house they are raising;
They had no divine foreshowing
Of the land to which they are going:
But on one man's soul it hath broken,
A light that doth not depart;
And his look, or a word he hath spoken,
Wrought flame in another man's heart.
Of the goodly house they are raising;
They had no divine foreshowing
Of the land to which they are going:
But on one man's soul it hath broken,
A light that doth not depart;
And his look, or a word he hath spoken,
Wrought flame in another man's heart.
And therefore to-day is thrilling
With a past day's late fulfilling;
And the multitudes are enlisted
In the faith that their fathers resisted,
And, scorning the dream of to-morrow,
Are bringing to pass, as they may,
In the world, for its joy or its sorrow,
The dream that was scorned yesterday.
With a past day's late fulfilling;
And the multitudes are enlisted
In the faith that their fathers resisted,
And, scorning the dream of to-morrow,
Are bringing to pass, as they may,
In the world, for its joy or its sorrow,
The dream that was scorned yesterday.
But we, with our dreaming and singing,
Ceaseless and sorrowless we!
The glory about us clinging
Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing:
O men! it must ever be
That we dwell, in our dreaming and singing,
A little apart from ye.
Ceaseless and sorrowless we!
The glory about us clinging
Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing:
O men! it must ever be
That we dwell, in our dreaming and singing,
A little apart from ye.
For we are afar with the dawning
And the suns that are not yet high,
And out of the infinite morning
Intrepid you hear us cry --
How, spite of your human scorning,
Once more God's future draws nigh,
And already goes forth the warning
That ye of the past must die.
And the suns that are not yet high,
And out of the infinite morning
Intrepid you hear us cry --
How, spite of your human scorning,
Once more God's future draws nigh,
And already goes forth the warning
That ye of the past must die.
Great hail! we cry to the comers
From the dazzling unknown shore;
Bring us hither your sun and your summers;
And renew our world as of yore;
You shall teach us your song's new numbers,
And things that we dreamed not before:
Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers,
And a singer who sings no more.
From the dazzling unknown shore;
Bring us hither your sun and your summers;
And renew our world as of yore;
You shall teach us your song's new numbers,
And things that we dreamed not before:
Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers,
And a singer who sings no more.
QUOTE: "Joy, sorrow, tears, lamentation, laughter -- to all these music gives voice, but in such a way that we are transported from the world of unrest to a world of peace, and see reality in a new way, as if we were sitting by a mountain lake and contemplating hills and woods and clouds in the tranquil and fathomless water." ~ Albert Schweitzer
