For two decades, Dar Williams has been writing some of the most trenchant and emotionally open songs in the folk-pop vein, and has achieved her considerable stature and recognition outside the formal workings of the mainstream record industry. Her first three albums, released independently, and an early national tour with the great Joan Baez, cemented her name in the ranks of top-tier songwriting and performing talent. This fall, Williams is revisiting that formative, fruitful period in her life by touring behind those first albums. Currently, she's performing her sophomore release in full in concerts throughout the country. Mortal City, released in 1996, is a funny, sad, political, personal, and beautiful collection of songs about and from Main Street America that, given current conversations about economic inequality, is perhaps as relevant as ever.