Maria Muldaur

Naughty, Bawdy & Blue | Stony Plain
By JEFF TAMARKIN  |  May 22, 2007
3.0 3.0 Stars
insida_muldar
Forget about the camel already — there’s so much more to Maria Muldaur than “Midnight at the Oasis.” In her 40-plus years of recording and performing, Muldaur has cut jazz, gospel, swing, and R&B albums, a tribute to Shirley Temple and one to Dylan. In recent years, she’s been returning to the emancipated pre-war female blues singers that served as an early inspiration: Naughty, Bawdy & Blue wraps a trilogy that began with 2001’s Richland Woman Blues and followed with 2005’s Sweet Lovin’ Ol’ Soul — both of them Grammy-nominated. But this time out, Muldaur goes uptown. Interpreting songs cut by such thorny, vulnerable, and yet cosmopolitan mamas as Ma Rainey, Victoria Spivey, and Bessie Smith, Muldaur’s age-ripened voice is appropriately abrasive but no less lusty than it was back under those palm trees. With period-perfect accompaniment on most of the set by James Dapogny’s retro Chicago Jazz Band, she’s licentious on Spivey’s ribald “Handy Man” and full of good advice on Smith’s “A Good Man Is Hard To Find.” Not all is hard-nosed and headstrong, though: Bonnie Raitt, in a duet on Sippie Wallace’s “Separation Blues,” helps draw out the mischievousness that can underlie these songs of hard men and harder times.
Related: Next steps, Joe + Judi, Groove infatuation, More more >
  Topics: CD Reviews , Entertainment, Music, Jazz and Blues,  More more >
| More

Most Popular
Blogs
 More: Phlog  |  Music  |  Film  |  Books  |  Politics  |  Media  |  Election '08  |  Free Speech  |  All Blogs
ARTICLES BY JEFF TAMARKIN
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   NEW YORK DOLLS | DANCING BACKWARDS IN HIGH HEELS  |  March 17, 2011
    The new New York Dolls have now been around longer - and released more albums (three) - than the old New York Dolls, and they're commemorating that new longevity by letting go of any compulsion they may have still harbored to honor their designation as "punk-rock progenitors."
  •   BLACK JOE LEWIS & THE HONEYBEARS | SCANDALOUS  |  March 09, 2011
    The soul revival has been going on long enough now that maybe it's a not a bad idea to stop calling it a revival at all.
  •   BRYAN FERRY | OLYMPIA  |  October 19, 2010
    From the Kate Moss cover pic to the A-list of guest stars to the reunion with original Roxy Music members Brian Eno, Phil Manzanera, and Andy Mackay, Olympia screams, "EVENT!"
  •   OLD 97'S | THE GRAND THEATRE  |  October 12, 2010
    When Old 97's are on — which they are most of the time on their eighth studio album — they're very, very on.
  •   DAR WILLIAMS | MANY GREAT COMPANIONS  |  October 05, 2010
    The companions of the title are Dar Williams's songs, which the singer-songwriter revisits here two different ways.

 See all articles by: JEFF TAMARKIN

LATEST SLIDESHOWS

All Slideshows