THE BEAT

by Seth Rogovoy

(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., Sept. 11, 1997)

Dar Williams, Karen Savoca

When Nirvana hit big at the beginning of the decade with "Smells Like Teen Spirit," record labels began a feeding frenzy in search of any garage-rock band in the land with a catchy, grungy song. The result was a glut of lousy, corporate-fashioned grunge bands -- or "scrunge," as some termed it dismissively -- signed to major labels and then unceremoniously dropped just a few years later.

What with artists like Jewel, Sarah McLachlan, Alanis Morissette and Sheryl Crow hitting big in the last few years, look for a feeding frenzy as record labels pounce on every chick with a guitar and a song in the hopes of making lightning strike twice. This time around, hopefully, they will practice better discretion, and not fall for the "coffeehouse pop" chic that Time magazine recently trumpeted. Here are two female singer-songwriters whose talent and track record transcend any localized trend.

Dar Williams

It's the end of the summer, and Dar Williams' new album, "End of the Summer" (Razor and Tie), is about to launch her into her busiest fall. Williams will kick off a six-month tour next week with not just one but three nights at the Iron Horse in Northampton (Tues., Sept. 16-Thurs., Sept. 18). It will be Williams' first tour with a band, which will include Richard Shindell on guitar as well as in the warmup slot.

Williams and Shindell will also be getting a big boost later this month when Joan Baez releases her new album, "Gone From Danger" (Guardian). The CD will include three songs by Shindell -- who will be touring with Baez in the winter and who has his own, excellent new album, "Reunion Hill" (Shanachie) -- and two by Williams, who also lends her harmonies to several tracks on the recording. This continues a firmly established collaboration between Baez and Williams, who opened shows for Baez on a world tour about a year ago, and who sang on Baez's version of her song, "You're Aging Well," on Baez's 1995 album, "Ring Them Bells."

Williams has only good things to say about Baez. "Professionally, it's a huge deal," said the Pioneer Valley-based singer-songwriter about the Baez connection in a recent phone interview. "It was timely for both of us. I had a growing, grassroots, word-of-mouth following and she had pop success. The two worlds came together to see both of us."

With "End of the Summer," Williams's word-of-mouth following is likely to be superseded by a whole new audience which will hear her for the first time the old-fashioned way: on radio. Her new CD is chock-full of catchy, radio-ready acoustic rock and folk-pop fodder like the first single, "Are You Out There," an ode to free-form radio DJs, and "Party Generation," which features an electric guitar solo (gasp!) and a huge, "We Are the World"-style choir singing the effervescent, beer-commercial-bouncy catch-line, "We are the party generation." Another tune, "What Do You Hear In These Sounds" -- a tongue-in-cheek look at psychotherapy -- is propelled by some catchy, hip-hop-style percussion, or what passes for such in new-folk.

Williams said that the decision to record such upbeat, pop- influenced tunes was not commercially-driven.

"I was concerned that people would think that this is sort of my big commercial push -- and I must say that my record label was not unthrilled that I had done this -- but that's not it," she said. "The songs I write just kind of present themselves to me. And what we learned from `Mortal City' [her previous album] is if you write something that's really pop-inflected, that's really how you have to produce it. You don't try to put a bunch of mandolins on something to keep it in the folk genre. If you write a pop song, it's a pop song, and if it needs drums it needs drums.

"I'm so happy to be making a living as a musician that there wasn't a need to do something that was more radio ready for the sake of being even more successful. My end of the bargain is to be writing songs as opposed to writing commercial endeavors."

Williams' songs on "End of the Summer" and previous albums speak particularly of and to a new, growing generation of "feminist teen- agers," thereby naturally finding themselves welcome in a market more open to such concerns.

"The reintroduction of the acoustic guitar into pop music has really blurred a lot of lines," said Williams. "And I think the daughters of boomers -- and sons -- are just looking for something in their music that's not really a rebellion but not a sellout, either. It's a time when people really want to be sharing more women's voices."

Indeed, Williams performed at a couple of Lilith Fair concerts in the midwest this summer. "There's a really more relaxed and broad- themed body of work out there of women's narratives," said Williams. "I think people are really hungry to hear these stories now. How cool is that? I'm very, very lucky."

Karen Savoca

From upstate New York, Karen Savoca, first of all, is not a chick with a guitar. Although on her wonderful debut album, "On the River Road," she is credited with playing piano, guitar, recorder, harmonica, mandolin, clavinet and drums, in her live shows -- when she appears as a duo billed as Karen Savoca and the Mind's Eye, with guitarist/bassist Pete Heitzman -- conga is her main instrument.

But more than just her unusual instrumental talent sets Savoca apart from the typical, guitar-slinging folksinger. Based on the merits of "On the River Road," which was co-produced by Tom "T-Bone" Wolk (Saturday Night Live Band, Hall and Oates, Carly Simon, Elvis Costello), Savoca appears to be a singer and songwriter of major league talent. Her vocals and folk-pop songs are full of soul and funk, the former variously recalling Sheryl Crow, Bonnie Raitt and Shawn Colvin, and the latter echoing Bruce Hornsby, Peter Gabriel, Colvin and Steely Dan.

The CD garnered Savoca numerous regional awards in upstate New York, but also won Musician magazine's national Best Unsigned Band contest in 1995. Savoca is now signed with the top singer-songwriter booking agency, and major labels are nipping at her heels. Catch her while she's still a relative unknown in a free performance this Saturday night, Sept. 13, at CC's Cafe at the campus center of North Adams State College at 9.

[This column originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on Sept. 11, 1997. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1997. All rights reserved.]

Seth Rogovoy
rogovoy@berkshire.net
music news, interviews, reviews, et al.

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