I’m in one of the green rooms of the labyrinthine Moore Theatre listening to Dar Williams breathily practice for an upcoming appearance at a cabaret event for the hit cable tv show, Mad Men. Our sound check was at 4:30, and we won’t take the stage until after 9, once Shawn Mullins (“ev-er-ee-thing’s gonna be alright/ Rockabye …”) finishes the opening set. Rob and Rowan, meanwhile, are well into their house concert gig in Pennsylvania.
Dar Williams reflected in the mirrored ceiling of Heather’s tour bus.
More than a few times in the last couple weeks have I shook my head and wondered: How did I get here?
It’s been a whirlwind that I’ve finally accepted as the universe grabbing me and hurling me at something … maybe scary, maybe life-changing … maybe all those things and totally necessary … so I’m finally tucking my arms in, my head down and making myself more aerodynamic. Beyond that … I’ve sort of given over control, taking a cue here or there.
Backstory: With three days left in my assignment teaching Algebra long-term, and about a week to go before rob and I would leave for our first lengthy tour in a while, I got a phone call from a woman named Melinda. She’d seen rob and I play at Joe Squared, and was pretty taken with me. So when her best friend, folk singer Dar Williams, mentioned her percussionist had fallen ill and she needed a replacement, Melinda forwarded my name. Dar tells me it’s something Melinda knew would happen almost from the moment she met me, that she immediately thought of Dar once she saw me play.
The placard at the Boulder theatre where Dar Williams, Heather Lloyd and the Magnetic Fields performed in Colorado.
For those who do not know, Dar Williams is kind of like the Janet Jackson of folk. She’s about the best well-known, successful, iconic woman in the genre today. Her classic songs, “The Babysitter’s Here,” “The Christians and the Pagans,” “When I Was A Boy” and “February,” are the clever narrative songs that most writers in the genre aspire to create. She headlines at the festivals where I am a songwriting finalist. Though we operate in the same genre, our place in the hierarchy is radically different.
I had to be in New York the very next day for an audition, and at first, I said no. I had school to finish up, rob and I would be leaving on a tour already booked for months, the next day was a Jewish holiday and I’ve had a lot of stress and heartache in my life recently, and I didn’t think I could handle even something good. I also figured that the likelihood of my getting it was slim to none.
Heather performing with Dar Williams in Boulder, CO.
But rob and my family pushed me to at least accept the audition and be able to say I’d taken the opportunity. My father, who had never been to New York, woke up with me at 5:30 the next morning, and off we went. 10 hours of driving for what would be a little more than an hour worth of audition.
But as I left the audition, it dawned on me that I was going to get the job. The impossibility of it was so certain, and then … I was going to get the job. Dar’s “ifs” slowly turned to “whens” in our conversation. Our harmonies had locked and lifted. I’d held my own and I was going to get it …. Oh, god…
I had a weekend to throw my life together, spending a 13-hour day at school the same Friday my spot with Dar was confirmed, tying up loose ends. Then spending two short days with live recordings overnighted to me and arriving at noon Saturday. On Monday, I got on a plane to Denver, and on Tuesday, I played the first of 18 shows with Dar that will take me all over the American northwest, southwest and south before I land back home Nov. 8. As of yesterday, I am more than half-way through this crazy month.
Am I having fun? Yes. For the first week, everything was still too new. I was still a trainee, and I couldn’t walk out on stage with the kind of confidence I possess while playing with rob. There are still harmony lines that leave me stretching my natural instincts, and drum fills that leave me stretching my biceps.
But I’ll talk to you about what’s actually interesting to you instead of my own neurosis.
I have learned that I can sleep on a tour bus, but that hitting a bump is a strange way to be roused and thrown about the little catacomb that is the hallway of bunk beds. Even stranger is being awakened by your ears popping at the severe change in elevation going into Flagstaff, AZ. We leave at midnight each night, with the driver, compass-tattooed Patrick Bane, pulling often more than 10-hour drives to the next city. After he finishes up with this tour, he’ll be driving New Kids on the Block.
You wake up there, a bit like you were in stasis, or were teleported. There are 6 bunks on each side, and apparently my instincts to pick the middle of the three were right. The top is more succeptable to amplifying the forces of the road. The bottom can be chilly. Each of them has a little golden light, increasing the honeycomb-like feel of the compartments, and a small tv. They have a thick vinyl curtain that velcroes together at the middle, which blocks out almost all light. They are not tall enough to sit upright in. My grandmother could never have done this.
During the days, we have access to a hotel room to shower, sleep and, to be frank, have access to a full range of bodily functions. The tour bus can only accommodate liquids, such that even the toilet paper has to be placed in a bin to the side of the bowl and disposed of later. It was one of the first things the tour manager told me after I got the job. I thought he was fucking with the new guy, but apparently not.
There’s a legitimate staff on this one, which is even stranger. A tour manager, production engineer, merch girl, driver, then Dar, the keyboard player and me. Most days, the production engineer has my gear out of the hold and set up on stage before I lift a finger. The tour manager has the daily itinerary posted for when we wake up, keys ready for the hotel. Suggestions on places to eat.
It’s a bit like new money/old money. I’ve fallen into a lifestyle that’s as old hat to this crew as it is wildly extravagant to me, but they’ve also lived it my way, too. They complain a little about the motel here in Albuquerque, but it’s everything I want out of life and almost never get on the road: privacy, a bed to myself, a television to watch it from, a warm shower.
In my audition, Dar called me a “road warrior.” Its part of the reason I think Dar might have chosen me. She was telling me she was 27 going on 28 when Joan Baez took her out on tour with her and made her career. At that point, she made $200 a night, about what rob and I make on the road.
Dar has told me I’m as good a “side-guy” as any of the 50 she’s worked with over the years, and that I possess that “third eye” that recognizes and helps smooth over difficult situations. She says I also possess the “harmony angel,” like her. She says if I wanted to make a career out of this, I’d be good at it. I tell her I’ve finally gotten enough ego out of my own music to feel like I have something to contribute there, and plan to push for success there.
I don’t know that I could have done this with someone other than Dar, picking up so much material and being thrown into the mix with little practice and a healthy dose of good faith.
We’re fixing our hair side by side in the mirror one night, and she is flowing dirty-blond hair and impossibly huge blue eyes next to my darkness. Her eyes are her most interesting feature. They are an opaque blue with bits of gray that make them look like the surface of frozen water. And her irises take up an unusually large amount of her eye, giving her a very open look. I watched her look up at her husband one night, and that open look was mixed with this deep and almost child-like love. Her 4-year-old son, Steven, is blessed with those same impossible eyes, as well as the most tenacious mind for stories and story-telling I’ve ever seen. One night, Dar asks me to watch him while she races on stage to sing with Shawn. Steven immediately asks me for a story. I wind up telling a bastardized version of The Last Unicorn, which he listens to intently. Then he asks for me to make up one about Spiderman. I’m relieved when Dar returns to take over.
She loves wine, and the rider (list of what goodies the artist would like backstage at the venue) includes a request for a couple bottles of whatever is local. She hates cheese. She loves sushi and Indian food. She is endeavoring to read more. She actually does constantly write little lists, which she makes a joke about on stage. She is unbelievably kind, understanding … a true optimist. She believes it’s going to be okay. She piles her hair on the back of head every night and I wonder if she will ever let it down in an almost Gypsy Rose Lee tease. She is also very easy to please, thank God.
