THERE HAS ALWAYS BEEN A TENSION BETWEEN THINGS THAT ARE “POPULAR” OR “TEMPORARY” AND THOSE THAT ARE TIMELESS. AS THEOLOGIAN GK CHESTERTON RICHLY STATED, “THE TEMPORARY THINGS ARE ALWAYS ATTACKING THE PERMANENT THINGS”.
MARIA MULDAUR HAS BUILT HER CAREER ON KEEPING THE PERMANENT AND TRADITIONAL JOYS OF MUSIC UP FRONT IN POPULAR CONSCIOUSNESS. INITIALLY TEAMING UP WITH GEOFF MULDAUR FOR A PAIR OF FOLKSY AMERICANA RELEASES IN THE LATE 1960S AND EARLY 70S, SHE HIT THE GROUND RUNNING WITH HER DEBUT EPONYMOUS SOLO ALBUM, WHICH INCLUDED A BUNCH OF HITS, INCLUDING THE STILL POPULAR “MIDNIGHT AT THE OASIS”.
HER CAREER HAS ALWAYS BEEN ONE OF BRINGING TO FOCUS THE TRADITIONAL SOUNDS OF AMERICA, SOMETIMES THROUGH JAZZ OR GOSPEL, BUT ALWAYS IN THE PUREE OF PRE-MODERN PULSES, WHEN MUSIC WAS MADE FOR DANCING.
HER LATEST ALBUM, “LET’S GET HAPPY TOGETHER”, HAS HER TEAMED WITH A NEW GENERATION OF MUSICIANS THAT APPRECIATE THE ROOTS OF AMERICA’S SONGBOOK. ON IT, MULDAUR SOUNDS REJUVINATED AND REFRESHED.
WE HAD A CHANCE TO CATCH UP WITH MS. MULDAUR, WHO WAS FILLED WITH CHARM, ENERGY AND ENTHUSIASM, JUST LIKE THE MUSIC SHE PERFORMS.
I FIRST CAUGHT YOU DURING YOUR “JAZZ PERIOD” IN THE 90s. NO MATTER THE GENRE, BE IT BLUES, GOSPEL OR “AMERICANA”, YOU ALWAYS SEEM TO GET TO THE CORE OF THE MUSIC. HOW DID YOU GET THE LOVE OF TRADITIONAL MUSIC INSTILLED TO YOU?
Traditional things are more excellent and rich than contemporary things.
It’s what I got exposed to. Growing up in Greenwich Village, the first music I was ever exposed to was “Cowboy Music” which was basically early country and western. I was listening to Kitty Wells and Hank Williams when I was 5 years old. It doesn’t get much better than Hank Williams’ wonderful songs. Also Ernest Tubb, Hank Snow and Hank Thompson-lots of people named “Hank”. (laughs)
In the middle to late 50s, all of the cool black stations were at the very end of the radio dial with about a two watt range, but I managed to glue my ear to the radio and check out Muddy Walters, Little Walter, Chuck Willis, Ruth Brown and all those R&B artists.
In my later teen years, Greenwich Village was the epicenter of the Folk Revival. I was then hearing all kinds of bluegrass music and people like Doc Watson, and discovering a lot of blues artists who we all presumed were deceased, but turned out to be quite alive and well, living in their home towns in the rural south.
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“Traditional things are more excellent and rich than contemporary things”
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Most of them were still playing music, so they were brought up north and put them up for concerts at coffee houses and folk festivals. So I came up hearing just the best of the best, and it was all very authentic music. None of it accounted for commercial pop radio success.
By the time I was in the Even Dozen Jug Band and the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, we mined a lot *****of the early jazz of the 20s and 30s. We didn’t just play blues or jug band music per se; we found songs by Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson and Paul Whiteman, all of the great old big bands and swing bands. That was always mixed in.
You can’t do any better than by being informed by the originators of all these great music traditions.
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“You can’t do any better than by being informed by the originators of all these great music traditions”
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WHEN YOU GOT ONTO THE SCENE WITH DAVE GRISMAN, BOB DYLAN AND STEFAN GROSSMAN, DID YOU HAVE ANY FEELINGS HOW SUCCESSFUL THEY WOULD EVENTUALLY BE?
I traveled in a van with them!
Not too many people know this, but before The Jug Band I was the lead singer in a bluegrass quartet, Carl Moran and the Washington Square Ramblers. David Grisman came up with that name, featured on mandolin with Fred Rice on fiddle, Steve Arkin on banjo. Steve Mandell, who was the guitarist on the famous “Dueling Banjos” theme, was also in the band.
We were all teenagers, way back in 1962 before anything else, doing things by Bill Monroe ****and The Stanley Brothers. None of us were talking about “making it”-we were just excited and passionate about discovering and learning as much as we could about these various musical genres, and trying to master playing and singing them the best that we could.
The fact that (blues singer) Victoria Spivey gave our Jug band an offer for a record contract, that was beyond our wildest dreams. “What? We’re going to record?!?” How exciting was that?!?
We were all driven by a natural for the music, and whatever degree of success we enjoyed after that was just a natural outcome of our devotion to the music.
SINCE YOU STARTED WITH BOB DYLAN WAY BACK WHEN, IS THERE ANYTHING ABOUT HIM THAT PEOPLE MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN THAT WE DON’T KNOW OR APPRECIATE?
There is, but I’m gonna keep it that way! (laughs)
I’ve known him for many years, and I greatly respect him, love him and appreciate him for the incredibly truthful, interesting and poetic messages that he has brought us all of these years.
VERY FEW ARTISTS HAVE A HIT SONG OR HIT ALBUM, LET ALONE HAVE A HIT ALBUM FOR THEIR VERY FIRST ALBUM. DID ANYONE GIVE YOU CAREER OR MUSICAL GUIDANCE, OR WERE YOU JUST “THROWN INTO” THE STUDIO?
I only launched my solo career by default, because my personal and musical partner Geoff Muldaur and I had gone our separate ways after a very long musical association. He ran off to join the Paul Butterfield Band, and I was left in Woodstock, NY with my young daughter, thinking I’d get a job as a waitress, now that the “Mastermind” of our musical collaboration had decided to go into a different direction.
But instead I was given an opportunity by Mo Ostin, the president of Warner Brothers at the time. I had been on Warner Brothers, both in the Jug Band, and with the two duet albums with Geoff. Mo offered me the opportunity to do the solo album, and I thought, “Well, it beats just sitting here in Woodstock, getting snowed in my driveway during the blizzard season, so I packed up our dog, and drove across the country.
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“We were all driven by a natural for the music, and whatever degree of success we enjoyed after that was just a natural outcome of our devotion to the music”
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I was just thrown in there. They asked “What do you want to do?
I thought of all of my favorite musicians like Dr. John, Ry Cooder, David Lindley and people like that. I just asked, and there they were!
As far as the songs, I don’t write myself, so I’ve made it my business to know who the great songwriters are and to get their phone numbers. It ended up being an eclectic mix of things I liked.
I did the old Jimmie Rodgers tune “Any Old Time” as well as a New Orleans blues by a wonderful woman Blue Lu Barker called “Don’t Cha Feel My Leg” that Dr. John suggested to me. I also did a Dolly Parton song (“My Tennessee Mountain Home”) and some songs by contemporary writers like the McGarrigle sisters and buddy David Nicthern.
I was just choosing songs that I liked, not even thinking about the genre or if they’d be good for commercial/pop radio. I was just trying to make an album that I could hopefully be proud of, and that it would get me out of the winter months in upstate New York. That was my biggest vision for that project!
Someone interviewed me a few years ago and said that I single handedly invented what we call “Americana Music”. I asked “What do you mean?” and he pointed out all of these songs that I had done on my first couple of albums. My second album included an all star big band; I also called my old friend Doc Watson to record one of my old time Appalachian songs “Ain’t Got No Honey Baby Now”.
That mix of stuff is what decades later got to be called “Americana Music”.
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” I was just trying to make an album that I could hopefully be proud of, and that it would get me out of the winter months in upstate New York”
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YOUR FIRST ALBUMS ALSO INCLUDED JAZZERS LIKE RAY BROWN, JIM KELTNER, ED SHAUNASSEY, RED CALLENDER, JOHN COLLINS, HARRY “SWEETS” EDISON, BUD SHANK, TOMMY TEDESCO, DAVE HOLLAND AND SNOOKY YOUNG.
Well, if you can get the best you might as well go for it.
It might have just been an interesting album for them. Back in those days, Reprise Records had people like Bonnie Raitt, Van Morrison, Randy Newman and Arlo Guthrie. It was kind of the label for the funky/artsy/rootsy people, like Ry Cooder. They weren’t even particularly interested in having “hit” records. They just liked the album projects.
At the last minute when the producer came in the studio and said, “You know, I’ ve been listening to the rough tracks, and they’re in pretty good shape. We have some uptempo tunes and ballads, but if we get one more medium tempo song I think that the album will be really nicely balanced. Can you think of anything?”
Davide Nicthern, my guitar player, had driven out to California on his own dime in his VW Bug because he was so excited that I was going to cut one of his tunes. I looked at him with a gratitude towards him for coming out all this way. So I asked “David, what about the song about the camel? Is that a medium tempo song?”
He said, “It sure is” and he whipped out his guitar, and I thought “Yeah, that’s cute”. We weren’t wild about it, but thought “OK, that will fit the bill here.” 1
That afternoon we called Freebo to play bass, Jim Gordon to play drums and Amos Garrett to play that inimitable guitar solo, which will live forever in the annals of guitar challenges everywhere.
The album came out, that “Midnight At The Oasis” was the song that kept bubbling up. The djs kept reporting that it was getting the most requests and airplay. That little gesture of gratitude bumped the whole project from a nice little artsy project to a mega-hit. Not just in the States, but all over the world.
Nobody schooled me on how to do anything. I was just following the thread, one step at a time.
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“Nobody schooled me on how to do anything. I was just following the thread, one step at a time”
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SPEAKING OF ROOTS, YOU BECAME INVOLVED WITH CHRISTIANITY AND CHRISTIAN MUSIC
I just reached a point in my life where I was inspired to reach out to my Creator.
HOW ABOUT YOUR LATEST ALBUM? SINCE YOU DON’T WRITE YOUR OWN MATERIAL, HOW DO YOU GO ABOUT FINDING INSPIRING MATERIAL FROM AGES PAST?
Here’s how my latest album came about: Like I mentioned earlier, I’ve always loved early jazz. I was shopping in a store in Woodstock a couple of years ago, and I heard this wonderful vintage jazz floating out of the speakers of the store.
I mentioned to the owner “How cool it is that your local radio station is playing this hip old jazz!” She said, “That’s not the radio; that’s some cds that I have. It’s a band called Tuba Skinny”. 1642
I had never heard of them before, thinking that these were old 78s from the 1920s. They were that authentic. “Oh, no” she said, “they are a young band of street musicians who have all now settled in New Orleans. They’ve been together a few years.”
I didn’t believe her; I was sure that it had to be an old record of musicians from a long time ago, so she had to show me the cd cover for me to believe it.
I became an instant fan, and she procured a few more cds for me. Two years ago when I was in New Orleans making my 42nd album, a tribute to Blue Lu Barker (who originally recorded “Don’t ‘cha Feel My Leg”), I’d just go out to see them. I didn’t have to go to a studio or club; I just had to figure out what street they were playing on and just go listen to them.
I’m sure they were wondering “Who’s this fat old lady dancing around with her walking stick?”
Eventually the washboard player recognized me, “Is your name Maria Muldaur?” He was so pleased and couldn’t believe it. He introduced me to the rest of the band, inviting me to sit in a number of times.
Last January, just before COVID, I was asked to do a guest showcase set at the International Folk Alliance in New Orleans. There was no money in it, so I thought “I can’t afford to drag my band down there from the Bay Area” when I realized “maybe Tuba Skinny will do the Showcase with me”.
They said they would, so I flew down there and we had one rehearsal and did a 7-8 song ****set. 1926 Everybody just loved it; it just felt so natural to be playing with them because both of us had obviously been drinking from the same musical fountains for a long time.
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“I was sure that it had to be an old record of musicians from a long time ago, so she had to show me the cd cover for me to believe it”
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A great musical hero of mine is Memphis Minnie. They knew her tunes, Sippie Wallace tunes. They knew everything that I knew, so they made it easy to sound like we’d been playing together for a long time.
After the show, everyone came up and told us how much they liked it, including an old friend, Holger Peterson who used to own Stoney Plain Records. He told me that it was a musical marriage made in heaven, and asked me to do an album with the band. He approached the current owner of the label, and that’s how the album came to be.
Once the band got on board, I spent months delving into the catacombs and deepest dark archives of American music. I had the help of my piano player Chris Burns, is really good at ferreting out rare songs.
It’s like a really exciting treasure hunt; you don’t know what you’re going to find, but it’s always something cool.
My only problem was to cull all of the magical gems from that era into just twelve songs.
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“It’s like a really exciting treasure hunt; you don’t know what you’re going to find, but it’s always something cool”
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I THINK THAT THE ALLURE OF THAT MUSIC IS THAT IT’S HARD TO BEAT THE TWO STEP RHYTHM PULSE, AS WELL AS UPBEAT LYRICS OF HOPE AND OPTIMISM.
The two step beat makes a song happy. Once everyone signed on to the album, Holger suggested the concept of the album two me and we talked about what kind of theme the album should have. We first thought of paying tribute to women artists from New Orleans, and the very first song we found was by Lil Harden Armstrong (Louis Armstrong’s first wife), called “Let’s Get Happy Together”. It was so infectious that I thought “This is a great song; let’s also make it the title for the album”.
Here we were sitting in the lobby of the Convention discussing the album. Little did we know that we’d soon be struck by this COVID tragedy from the gloom and doom pandemic, making us all go under lockdown for over a year. I think the album therefore came along serendipitously.
We recorded it in the fall, and put it out in May, just as everyone is crawling out from hibernation and starting to connect again. I can’t think of a more timely title than “Let’s Get Happy Together”.
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“Once the band got on board, I spent months delving into the catacombs and deepest dark archives of American music”
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THE ALBUM IS VERY OPTIMISTIC
That’s how things were back in those days.
They had The Depression, having just come out of The Great War and slowly gearing up for another war. The thing I love about these kids is the way they play the music, and there are ***a lot of wonderful Dixieland bands, but there’s a certain way that Tuba Skinny does it that if feels like they are channeling the very vibration of that era.
It was a much more relaxed, organic tempo of life itself. It was kind of freer than what we have today. They make you feel happy.
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“It was a much more relaxed, organic tempo of life itself. It was kind of freer than what we have today”
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WHO, LIVING OR DEAD, WOULD YOU PAY $1000 TO SEE PERFORM?
Memphis Minnie, because she was just so cool.
I’ve seen Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald and a lot of the early blues guys and bluegrass greats. I never saw Billie Holiday, but Memphis Minnie means something very special to me.
She didn’t just sing the blues; she wrote and recorded over 200 of her own songs and played a bitchin’ guitar. Her songs were all about survival; she was a role model to me. Not just musically, but in the way she lived her life.
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“The two step beat makes a song happy”
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WHAT HISTORICAL FIGURE WOULD YOU LIKE TO SIT DOWN FOR AN EVENING AND PICK HIS OR HER BRAIN?
Jesus. He was a pretty wise guy and had a lot of cool things to say.
I’d like to hear his lips to my ears without with these really misconstrued interpretations from people who call themselves “Christians” today.
WHAT BOOK DO YOU THINK EVERYONE SHOULD READ? 2713
A book by Matthew Fox called Creation Spirituality.
WHAT’S THE BEST ADVICE THAT SOMEONE GAVE YOU?
I don’t know if it was the best advice, but from Victoria , one of the originals Blues Queens of the 20s.
She suggested to the Jug Band to get me in the band. She thought I would be good window dressing. (laughs)
She’d take me to her apartment, and she’d play me all of these 78s; that’s where I first heard Memphis Minnie. She’d look for songs that could suit my young voice. She’d put her arm around me and say, “Now, baby, it ain’t enough to must go up there and sound good; you’ve got to look good too. You’ve got to get up there, strut your stuff and make all eyes be on you.”
Then, she looked at me and said, “That’s what they call stage presence”.
I said “Yes, maam” and I hope I’ve done her proud.
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“Now, baby, it ain’t enough to must go up there and sound good; you’ve got to look good too. You’ve got to get up there, strut your stuff and make all eyes be on you
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WHAT GIVES YOU THE MOST JOY IN LIFE?
I love to swim. I try to swim every day.
Making good music with great musicians. Like this latest project with Tuba Skinny. It was a very joyful time in my musical life.
WHAT DO YOU WANT PEOPLE TO SAY AT YOUR MEMORIAL SERVICE?
“It’s amazing how she lived to 105; she’s in such good shape” (laughs)
Also, that I was a good and loving person, and a good musician.
DID YOU EVER COME TO A POINT IN YOUR CAREER AND FELT “I’VE MADE IT”?
About 20 years ago,
In a way, singing came easy to me, but mastering it took awhile. Getting as good as I wanted to get, and then I suddenly realized when I was having a really good time with a band that I was singing with, I realized that I could get my voice to do anything that I directed it to do. If I had a musical idea, I finally reached a point where I could execute it well.
But then, unbeknownst to me that there would ever be anything beyond that, a day came when I realized that on a good night, if I was in the zone with the band I didn’t have to direct anything at all. I could just open my mouth and effortlessly just be able to sing and spontaneously improvise. I could even surprise myself and my band members.
When you are in that zone, you are so in the flow that you’re just conduit, and empty vessel and the music is just coming through you.
That’s when I considered that I had arrived. It had nothing to do with “I made it to #2 on the Billboard
charts, or anything like that.
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“When you are in that zone, you are so in the flow that you’re just conduit, and empty vessel and the music is just coming through you”
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WHAT ARE YOUR FUTURE GOALS?
I just want to keep singing as long as I sound good. Hopefully that’s for a good many years.
I would like to do an album of old timey Appalachian music, because that is one of my first loves, and so would have me come full circle.
GK CHESTERTON WROTE THAT ‘THOSE WHO DON’T KNOW THEIR PAST IS LIKE THE DROP OF WATER FROM THE SINK THAT DOESN’T KNOW THE OCEAN FROM WHICH IT CAME”. MARIA MULDAUR HAS CARVED OUT A CAREER BRINGING THE RICH WATERS OF HER ENCYCLOPEDIC KNOWLEDGE AND APPRECIATION OF AMERICANA INTO THE EARS OF THOSE WITH SOFT SOULS.
HER MUSIC HAS ALWAYS BEEN ONE THAT BRINGS JOY AND HAPPINESS. IT’S NOT UNNOTICED THAT THESE SONGS, FROM A TIME OF AMERICA’S DEPRESSION OF THE 30S, WERE USED TO ENCOURAGE AND INSPIRE, CAN BE USED DURING A SIMILAR TIME. MULDAUR’S MUSIC GIVES US A PERSPECTIVE THAT WE ALL NEED, FOR THIS AND THE NEXT GENERATION.