MARIA MULDAUR:

The singer who helped create “Americana” continues a sterling career

Raw Passion, Soul and Grit are at the heart of her new recordings.

Maria Muldaur is usually described, these days, as a “heritage” artist. That’s because she’s succeeded, year after year, as a singer that always raises audiences to their feet, keeps coming up with songs that resonate, and continually makes records that ring with the truth.

So here she is, after all these years since her iconic 1974 hit “Midnight At the Oasis,” still on the road, still making landmark new records. And still stretching the limits of “Americana” — a catch-all description for a genre she’s been exploring since long before the term was coined.

Muldaur was born Maria D'Amato, and raised in Greenwich Village, the epicenter of all things hip. During the folk revival of the early '60s, she began exploring and singing early Blues, Bluegrass, Appalachian “Old Timey” music. Beginning her recording career in 1963 with the Even Dozen Jug Band and shortly thereafter, joining the very popular Jim Kweskin Jug Band, touring, and recording several albums with them throughout the '60s. Two records with then-husband Geoff Muldaur followed, but she began a solo career when the marriage and musical partnership ended in 1973.

In 1974, “Midnight At the Oasis,” the single off her first solo album, was a mega pop hit worldwide, and garnered her several Grammy nominations. Her follow up hit, the iconic feminine anthem “I’m a Woman,” also climbed to the top of the pop charts, but her 49-year career could best be described as a long, and adventurous odyssey through the various forms of American Roots Music. Throughout all of her recordings for Warner Brothers and far beyond, there have been hints of old-time Appalachian, Classic Jazz, Big Band Swing, Bluegrass, R&B, and Gospel. Above all, the Blues — in all its many manifestations — remained the paramount influence on her music.

During her long recording and performing career, she has often joined forces with some of the greatest artists in these many genres...the likes of, Dr. John, Ry Cooder, Doc Watson, David Lindley, Hoagy Carmichael, Jazz Giants Benny Carter and Ray Brown, Mavis Staples, Bob Dylan, John Sebastian, and many others too numerous to mention.

There have been some 38 recordings and continuous touring both in North America and abroad. She’s played on Broadway, she’s sung with Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead. She’s made wonderfully charming records for children, and she’s sung cheerfully bawdy blues that would make preachers blush. Her recordings are frequent nominees and winners of major awards.

Her critically acclaimed 2001 Stony Plain release, Richland Woman Blues, was nominated for a Grammy and named Best Traditional Blues Album of the Year by the Blues Foundation, as was the follow up to that album, Sweet Lovin’ Ol’ Soul. Her timely 2008 release, Yes We Can!, featured songs from some of the most socially concerned songwriters of the past half century: Bob Dylan, Marvin Gaye, Allen Toussaint, Garth Brooks and others, and featured her “Women’s Voices for Peace Choir” which included Bonnie Raitt, Joan, Baez, Jane Fonda, Odetta, Phoebe Snow, Holly Near and others.

For her 2009 Stony Plain recording, Maria revisited her original Jug Band roots, teaming up with old friends John Sebastian, David Grisman and Dan Hicks. Garden of Joy was nominated for Best Traditional Blues Album of the Year at the Blues Foundation Awards, and garnered Maria her 6th Grammy nomination.

So here’s the new Maria Muldaur CD, released internationally Sept. 27 on Stony Plain Records. Her 39th album, it’s called Steady Love, and it marks Maria’s return to one of her favorite places on this planet: New Orleans.

Steady Love is a contemporary slice of work—soulful, sassy and built on rhythmic grooves that could only have been laid down in the Crescent City with an “A Team” of solid-sending players that have Louisiana in their basic DNA. She calls it “Bluesiana music”—her own brand of blues, R&B and “swamp funk.” Keyboardist, and funkmeister extraordinaire David Torkanowsky acted as musical director, and “master facilitator”—leading a band whose street language is soul and funk.

But, as always, it’s the songs that count. Choosing great songs has always been one of Maria Muldaur’s special talents. Two classic Louisiana songwriters, Percy Mayfield and Bobby Charles, are represented in the song line-up, as are Americana writers such as Eric Bibb, Greg Brown and Stephen Bruton.

Steady Love is a notable benchmark in Maria Muldaur’s long and remarkable career. Long based in the San Francisco Bay Area, she spends long spells on the road playing North America’s most prestigious concert halls, festivals and clubs.

Perhaps adopting John Lee Hooker’s motto—in his 80s, he famously said “It’s too late to quit now”—she has no plans to slow down. When you make records as vital, soulful and as deeply felt as this, and when your live performances are so spectacular, why would you? Her audience, loyal as ever, applauds. And, in return, Maria Muldaur gives the gift of America’s best music.