Celebrating Cris Williamson

If any one recording helped define the Women's Music movement, it was 27-year-old Cris Williamson's "The Changer and the Changed." Released in 1975 by the LA-based lesbian collective Olivia Records, Williamson's recording became a source of hope, strength, and empowerment both for women on the path to owning and loving themselves, and for all people who honor justice, freedom, and nature.

On Saturday and Sunday, January 10 and 11, at 7 p.m., the South Dakota native returns to Berkeley, where she landed in 1969 after being raised in the wilds of Wyoming and Colorado. Supported by a stunning line-up of friends, Williamson will celebrate her music past and present, as well as the community with which it is entwined, at Freight & Salvage. Vicki Randle, Barbara Higbie, Shelly Doty, and Julie Wolf are just some of the artists who will join her in making the evenings unforgettable.

Talking with Williamson feels like talking with a sage. What better reason to step aside and let this wise woman speak for herself about her evolution, and the deep-rooted spirituality that distinguishes her latest album?

"Spirituality has always been important to me, but it has risen in importance of its own accord," she says. "About three years ago, I lost my voice from mold in my lungs. It was staggering for me. I didn't quite know what had happened. There were places in my voice that were missing that had always been there. It was pretty frightening.

"I took a year's sabbatical, which was more than a bit for someone who had always been working. While I was being quiet, I could more easily hear voices that were speaking to me about Spirit, kindness and generosity - the things that really matter to me in human beings. I am so moved these days when people are kind.

"I've been watching the striving for justice and fairness in the world, where people see you as a human being rather than judging you by your color or sexuality or any of those things. For years, we've been struggling to be seen as human beings and, at the same time, keep our individuality. It's a constant struggle for human beings to be apart and yet to belong.

"Somewhere in that struggle to keep my individuality and really care about myself and see myself clearly, I crouched down and tried to figure out what was really important in my life. I asked myself if I couldn't sing, could I still be Cris Williamson, do what I really want to do, and be who I am in the world? I came to an agreement that I could. With healing and practice, my voice came back, for which I'm eternally grateful.

"It was a test of faith. I know I'm not the first. It's as though I'd stumbled across some place that's a wilderness, and you know other people have been in this place because they've left notes, and scratches on the rocks. A runner who can't run - you can think of a million examples.

"If you're only gathered around one means of expression - if you only eat eucalyptus leaves, and that tree dies - you die. So it's best to range widely and wisely, and really start paying close attention. I think the older we get, it's demanded of us more and more to wake up and pay attention.

"As I rose back up again, I had 24 songs in hand, which I combined with a few from other CDs because they seemed to want to belong to this particular gallery showing. I'm well pleased with the album and its minimalist presentation.

"Forty years ago I made 'The Changer.' Thankfully, I wrote something that is broad-shouldered and very wide in its embrace. Even though I was only a young 27 when I made that music, it amazingly still holds true.

"My goal was always to sing for the world. But I realized that at that time in my life, I had to help create rooms of our own for women. They were the one who wanted my music more than anyone. They begged for it, clamored for it, had to have it. You have to pay attention to that. Necessity is the mother of invention. So I tended to them and to myself, because I always write for myself. The miracle to me is that it has been useful for anybody else beyond my own devices.

"When people are starving, it's hard to measure if you're any good. Sometimes they'll eat anything. But the fact that it's held up all these years says I made something very nourishing that can still be sampled and tasted.

"The concert is going to be a unification of people who were there then, people who are there now, and people who haven't seen each other in a long time. It's going to be a knitting together of a lot of strands that came apart in all those rough in-between days. Community can be lost, memory can be lost. This is a way to remember who we are, why we do what we do, and what we're here for."

For tickets to the 40th Anniversary Celebration of Cris Williamson's generation-defining recording, head to TicketFly.com.