Cris Williamson

Cris Williamson stands among the central architects—some would say the central architect—of the women's music movement that emerged during the 1970s, recognized for her roles as singer, songwriter, musician, and activist. She publicly embraced feminism at a moment when much of the country still weighed the value of "women's lib," and she presented herself as an openly lesbian performer when few others in the industry would risk such visibility, thereby forging a direct, forceful, and unprecedented musical address to women. She further participated in founding Olivia Records, one of the earliest labels created expressly for women's music and intended to serve listeners the mainstream industry had bypassed.

Her stature in that history matches the strength of her abilities as vocalist and guitarist together with the intimate, articulate character of her songwriting. Female performers who later spoke out, ranging from Melissa Etheridge, Indigo Girls, and k.d. lang to the Riot Grrrls, remain indebted to her example regardless of their own stylistic choices.

Williamson entered the world in Deadwood, South Dakota, in 1947. With her father employed as a forest ranger, she spent her childhood without electricity in Colorado and Wyoming, hearing recordings on a wind-up phonograph. While residing in Sheridan, Wyoming, and drawing inspiration from Judy Collins, she began appearing on a local radio station; three listeners then combined resources to raise $300 and establish Avanti Records, which issued her debut album, The Artistry of Cris Williamson, when she was sixteen in 1964. The pressing of five hundred copies sold out rapidly, leading to the follow-up releases A Step at a Time in 1965 and The World Around in 1966. She then set performing and recording aside to attend the University of Denver. After completing her studies she resumed musical work, teaching school during the day and playing clubs at night. Her first adult recording for a national label, the folk-rock album Cris Williamson, appeared on Ampex Records in 1971 and reportedly moved 11,000 copies.

In 1973 she took part in a radio interview conducted by the young lesbian folksinger Meg Christian and remarked that a record label aimed specifically at gay women would be welcome. That suggestion prompted the immediate creation of Olivia Records, which began operations in 1973 with a single coupling Christian's reading of the Gerry Goffin/Carole King composition "Lady" and Williamson's own "If It Weren't for the Music." Olivia's first full-length release was Christian's debut album I Know You Know, produced by Williamson, in 1974; the label's second was Williamson's The Changer and the Changed in 1975.

The Changer and the Changed became to women's music what Michael Jackson's Thriller later became to the broader industry in the mid-1980s—an album whose sales far exceeded expectations for its audience, surpassing 100,000 copies in its first year. Eventually it reportedly exceeded 500,000 copies, a figure that would qualify it as gold although the RIAA has not conferred that certification. Williamson next issued Live Dream on the Dream Machine label in 1978, an album that also featured June Millington, formerly of Fanny, and Jackie Robbins; her next proper studio follow-up to The Changer and the Changed, Strange Paradise, arrived on Olivia in 1980. Blue Rider followed in 1982, the same year Pacific Cascade Records released the children's album Lumière, which earned a Parents' Choice award. That project marked Williamson's first collaboration with singer-songwriter Tret Fure, who served as engineer; the two later became domestic partners.

During the fall of 1982 Williamson and Christian commemorated the tenth anniversary of Olivia's founding with a concert at New York's Carnegie Hall, later documented on the two-LP set Meg/Cris at Carnegie Hall issued in 1983. Williamson's subsequent studio album, Prairie Fire, appeared in 1985; one of its tracks, "Don't Lose Heart," later served as the theme for the 1989 film New Year's Day. The holiday collection Snow Angel was released for the 1985 Christmas season. Wolf Moon (1987) included several songs that invoked "wolf" imagery, among them references to novelist Virginia Woolf and the late folksinger Kate Wolf. A country-oriented duo project with Teresa Trull, Country Blessed, followed in 1989.

Live in Concert: Circle of Friends (1991) constituted Williamson's first solo live album, captured at a Berkeley, California, performance marking the fifteenth anniversary of The Changer and the Changed; alongside fresh renditions of material from that album, it introduced new originals and covers such as James Taylor's "Millworker." In April 1994 Williamson and Fure issued the first of three consecutive duo albums, Postcards from Paradise, which was succeeded by Between the Covers in February 1997 and Radio Quiet in March 1999, both appearing on Williamson's own Wolf Moon imprint after Olivia had exited the record business to become the travel company Olivia Cruises and Resorts.

Williamson and Fure ended their partnership in 2000, an experience Williamson addressed on Ashes, her first solo studio album in fourteen years, released in September 2001. She then joined forces with fellow women's-music veteran Holly Near for the duo album Cris and Holly on H&C Records in September 2003. Her next solo effort, Real Deal, appeared in February 2005, followed by Fringe in November 2007. Gift Horse, issued in 2011, gathered songs drawn from her life on the prairies of the American West. The ambitious double album Pray Tell, released in 2013, frequently explored Williamson's spiritual themes. For Motherland in 2017 she interpreted nine of her favorite songs in addition to contributing one original.