Rating: BUY IT!

Styles: Classic Depression Jug Band Era made humorously contemporary, fresh and light

I confess, I write reviews because I learn. Reviewing music forces me to research music; and once you peel back the blue layers to the early 1900’s through about the 1950’s, you realize there’s this little sweet spot called the 30’s. Well Maria Muldaur doesn’t have to do research. She grew up in NY City’s Greenwich Village at a time of the intersecting root music cacophonies of blues, jazz, country, western, bluegrass, folk, jug band, gospel and plain ole old-timey music! No, she didn’t grow up in the 30’s; she grew up during a revival of all the great music genres.

Ah, back to the 30’s--where root music flowered like a garden—blues, jazz, big band, swing, ragtime, and (yes) jug band music. So someone is literally playing a jug, you might ask? Yes, it’s true—that, plus a mix of other various and numerous traditional and home-made instruments. And here in Maria Muldaur’s latest release, you’ll find a most skillful delivery by the most skillful of players reminding us blues lovers of our roots music ethnomusicology. Oh, and I should mention Maria’s CD has been nominated for a 2010 Blues Music Award in the category of Acoustic Album of the Year.

Look at this amazing line up: we have the one and only “America’s First Lady of Roots Music” vocalist and producer, Maria Muldaur; John Sebastian is on baritone guitar, 6-string banjo, guitar and harmonica; David Grisman is on mandolin, mandola and “retro banjo”; Taj Mahal is on banjo and guitar; (the late) Fritz Hammond is on jug Track 6; Kit Stovepipe is on National guitar, jug, and washboard; Alex Anagnostopoulos is on banjo and provides harmony vocals Track 4; Jim Rothermel is on clarinet, slide whistle and provides musical direction; Danny Caron is on guitar; Ruth Davies and Tim Eschelman are on bass; Suzy Thompson is on fiddle; Bowen Brown is on drums and percussion; Pete Devine provides percussion; Bob Schwartz is on trumpet, Kevin Porter is on trombone and Dan Hicks provides vocal fun with Maria on Track 7. Yes, you got it: that’s 17 players. Can someone say HOUSE PARTY! Gosh, I only hope I didn’t miss anyone. I can see why she aptly used ‘garden of joy’ in the title.

"Keep your eyes cocked on Maria d'Amato. You will soon see another folk star." Victoria Spivey wrote in a 1964 review of the singer's Newport Folk Festival debut with the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, originally published in Record Research magazine and reprinted in the Naughty Bawdy & Blue booklet. Spivey was correct in her prediction that the singer, who married Kweskin band member Geoff Muldaur, would become a shining light of the '60s folk revival. Maria, of course, would also triumph in the pop, blues, jazz, and contemporary Christian music realms.

One of the most eclectic song stylists of modern times, Muldaur returns to material associated with Spivey, Sippie Wallace, Mamie Smith, Bessie Smith, Alberta Hunter, Ma Rainey, and other blues divas of the 1920s on her latest in a trilogy of CDs for the Canadian Stony Plain in which she explores the "classic blues" of that period. (One curiosity is a pop song titles Smile, credited in the booklet to Charlie Chaplin, Geoff Parsons, and John Turner, though in fact it is not their Smile.) Naughty Bawdy & Blues, (sic) however, is the first CD on which the vocalist is supported by a traditional jazz band of the type featured on many of the original recordings. Pianist James Dapogny's Chicago Jazz Band does a superb job in backing Muldaur, its horn section supplying just the right moans when called for and the rhythm section providing some nicely syncopated New Orleans bounce. Rob Bourassa joins them on two selections for acoustic guitar solos that bring Eddie Lang to mind, and Bonnnie Raitt duets with Muldaur on Wallace's Separation Blues. For the Bessie Smith hit Empty Bed Blues, Muldaur is accompanied only by longtime Etta James sideman Dave Mathews on piano and trombonist Kevin Porter. Muldaur shines throughout, her raspy tone and wide vibrato an ideal match for the vintage material, and she brings appropriate sass to such risque tunes as Empty Bed Blues, Handy Man, and One Hour Mama.