Early years

Williamson was born in 1947 in Deadwood, South Dakota,^[1] although her family moved to Colorado and Wyoming when she was still young. Williamson has recalled that she lived in a small isolated town and at some expense, was taken to piano lessons by her mother from when she was around 5 or 6 years of age. Her mother insisted that "no matter how far out in the mountains or the wilderness we are, my kids are going to have culture."^[2] Her musical idol at the time was Judy Collins, and Williamson developed a musical style and sound that was similar to that of Collins. She released her first album, The Artistry of Cris Williamson in 1964, when she was sixteen.^[1] She became a local musical sensation in Sheridan, Wyoming, releasing two following LPs afterward.^[3] Williamson graduated from the University of Denver. She supported herself initially as a school teacher,^[4] while at the same time collaborating with other women who were also singer-songwriters and performing artists. She began to network with Holly Near, Meg Christian, and Margie Adam, all musicians who became women artists of stature, forming an entirely new genre of music, primarily about and for women.

Olivia Records

Williamson became close friends with Meg Christian and during a radio interview in Washington, D.C. in 1973, when Christian was discussing the challenges with her record label, Williamson is recorded as asking "well, why don’t you just start a women’s record company?" A group, which became the Olivia collective, met two days later and decided to establish a women’s record label aimed at gay women.^[5] The independent label Olivia Records was founded the next day.^[1] The founders of the label saw it as an opportunity to build on the increased awareness of lesbian feminist causes and give gay women a voice in the cultural mainstream that reflected their experiences. The founders also aimed to "keep profits in the pockets of lesbian artists and sound technicians, and power in the hands of female label heads who would create alternative channels for production and distribution in an industry controlled by men."^[6] The label was criticised at the time as being discriminatory, but Williamson said they were "for women, not against men...[adding]...why is it like that, the dichotomy? It's a false equivalency. It's a way to dumb it down and take the power out of it."^[7]

Olivia Records released Williamson's The Changer and the Changed (1975) which became one of the best-selling independent releases of all time.^[8] Described as "the cornerstone of the feminist 'women's music' movement",^[9] the album was rated in 2017 as number 123 on the NPR (National Public Radio) list of the greatest albums made by women.^[10][11] The Changer and the Changed was also the first LP to be entirely produced by women, and is the all-time best-selling album to come out of the women's music genre. As William Ruhlmann of AllMusic writes:

"The Changer and the Changed was to women's music what Michael Jackson's Thriller was to the music industry in general in the mid-'80s, an album that sold far beyond the perceived size of the market, more than 100,000 copies in its first year of release. Eventually, it reportedly sold more than 500,000 copies, which would make it a gold album, although it has not been certified as such by the RIAA. (That does not disprove the sales estimate, however. Albums are not certified automatically; a record company must request certification and pay for an audit.)"^[1]

Williamson went on to record more than a dozen further albums with Olivia Records, then after its demise formed her own label, Wolf Moon Records. This helped to set the pace for other recording artists who found it difficult to work with the major record labels.

In 1982, she collaborated with Estonian artist/author Viido Polikarpus on a science fiction/fantasy fable LP and book (with Polikarpos' artwork) entitled Lumiere, which was released on Pacific Cascade Records.

Personal life

Williamson recorded two albums with her long-time producer and lover, Tret Fure. The first of these of these, recorded in the fall of 1982, was a children's album called Lumiere ...A Science-Fantasy Fable, which won a Parents' Choice Award.^[12] Fure is said to have helped "add a more produced, harder-rocking sound to Williamson's LPs Prairie Fire and Wolf Moon...[and]...with Postcards from Paradise, the two abandoned their solo careers to form a permanent duo act."^[13] Williamson and Fure ended their 20-year relationship in 2000, and each now records as a solo artist.^[14]

Williamson has worked as a session musician both to support herself and to lend assistance to other fellow artists. She has collaborated with other women's music artists, including Meg Christian and Teresa Trull. She has friends in many corners; one longtime friend is musician Bonnie Raitt, who has played on some of her albums.

Political activism and charity work

Williamson has been a lesbian feminist and a promoter of women owned music companies.^[15]

Writing in the Los Angeles Times in 1984, Steve Pond noted that Williamson was "initially put off by the political stridency of the early Olivia scene" but became more active and in the same article she is quoted as saying: "There are a lot of broken women in the women's movement, women just edged and barbed and ready to go off, and a lot of women who simply do not want Olivia to change."^[16]

She has worked on a teaching project with Bonnie Raitt that offered songwriting workshops called 'Catch and Release.'^[17]

Use in hip-hop

Williamson's "Shine on Straight Arrow" was sampled by late hip hop producer J Dilla in the song "The Red" from the 2003 album Champion Sound (with Madlib as Jaylib),^[18] as well as producer Knxwledge for the instrumental "498" on his 2009 debut EP 3P.^[19] Her song "Waterfall" from The Changer and the Changed has also been sampled by various other hip hop artists such as Raekwon on his song "A Rainy Day" from his 2013 album Fly International Luxurious Art.^[20] Additionally, various voice clips from Williamson's 1982 storybook LP Lumière were sampled on the 2002 song "Astroboy" by hip-hop and electronic producer Daedelus.^[21]