In a seventeen-year career as a performer on the folk circuit, Dar Williams has come to epitomize the idealized version of the coffeehouse singer-songwriter: thoughtful, intimate, a weaver of stories that deliver with such quiet emotion you might find yourself crying without even knowing why. She’s just released her version of a greatest-hits album, the double-length “Many Great Companions,” which not only offers up twenty of her best-loved songs, but also features twelve new acoustic recordings, many in collaboration with the likes of Mary Chapin Carpenter and Gary Louris of the Jayhawks, who also produced the album. We may live in a time where you can’t flip a coin without hitting a singer-songwriter, but it’s a rare and precious coin indeed if it turns up the likes of Williams. Her cover of The Kinks’ “Better Days” not only soars with its melancholy optimism, but it invokes a new appreciation for the songwriting of the Davies brothers. And her own compositions, like “Spring Street” and “The Babysitter’s Here,” connect with a beautiful sense of the everyday stories that compel our lives forward. I’m new to the Dar Williams songbook, but I’ve become mesmerized by its mix of intelligence, musicality and vulnerability. (Brian Hieggelke)
October 26 at Evanston Space, 1245 Chicago Avenue, Evanston, (847)492-8860. 8pm. $30.
A Joyful Noise: Mars Williams’ Jazz Holiday Tradition Williams and his band present a mash-up of holiday melodies with avant-garde jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler’s squonky works, finding both commonality and tonality.
For “Want” of a Change: A Preview of Rufus Wainwright at Ravinia Park Rufus Wainwright isn’t the first singer-songwriter to reinterpret earlier work through an orchestral lens. And much of Wainwright’s third and fourth albums, “Want One” and “Want Two”—whose twentieth anniversaries are the prompt for this new tour—is fully scored. But when Wainwright hits the Pavilion stage at Ravinia tonight, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra will be behind him.
Cooling It: A Preview of Colleen Green at Cole’s Bar When Green strums power chords or chiming notes on top of her backing track, you might think you’re at Ramones karaoke night and Madonna is taking her turn.
Brutal Finesse: A Preview of King Crimson at Ravinia There have been few new compositions from King Crimson these past two decades, but the live arrangements of songs from its catalog are often strikingly different than the recorded versions.
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