Cris Williamson

On 12 September 2022 Williamson received the Jack Emerson Lifetime Achievement Award from the Americana Music Association along with Judy Dlugacz who co-founded Olivia Records. At the ceremony, Williamson noted: "We've sold out Carnegie Hall three times. This is the first time we've been acknowledged by the industry...[adding]...a woman singing to another woman...it’s not such a big deal now, because now love is love is love."

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).

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."

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.

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. 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." Williamson and Fure ended their 20-year relationship in 2000, and each now records as a solo artist.

Olivia Records released Williamson's The Changer and the Changed (1975) which became one of the best-selling independent releases of all time. Described as "the cornerstone of the feminist 'women's music' movement", the album was rated in 2017 as number 123 on the NPR (National Public Radio) list of the greatest albums made by women. 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:

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. The independent label Olivia Records was founded the next day. 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." 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."

Cris Williamson (born 1947) is an American feminist singer-songwriter and recording artist. She was a visible lesbian political activist, during an era when few who were unconnected to the lesbian community were aware of Gay and Lesbian issues. Williamson's music and insight have served as a catalyst for change in the creation of women-owned record companies in the 1970s. Using her musical talents, networking with other artists working in Women's music, and her willingness to represent those who did not yet feel safe in speaking for themselves, Williamson is credited by many in the LGBT community for her contributions, both artistically, and politically, and continues to be a role model for a younger generation hoping to address concerns and obtain recognition for achievements specific to people who have historically been ignored.

Williamson was born in 1947 in Deadwood, South Dakota, 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." 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. She became a local musical sensation in Sheridan, Wyoming, releasing two following LPs afterward. Williamson graduated from the University of Denver. She supported herself initially as a school teacher, 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.