Maria Muldaur - Richland Woman Blues - 2001

Product Description: If you pick up Richland Woman Blues remembering Maria Muldaur's erotic recording of the song with Jim Kweskin's Jug Band, you may be surprised at how her voice has changed, and yet how impossible it is to mistake her for anyone else. She can still negotiate the leaps and slides that seductively shaded the original "Richland Woman Blues" or "Midnight at the Oasis", but her voice is deeper and she commands a rasping growl–characteristics eminently suitable for the blues and gospel songs assembled here. The album's inspiration was a visit to the grave of the great guitar-playing blueswoman Memphismore… Minnie, and she selects four of her songs, two as conversational duets with Alvin Youngblood Hart and two with the artful guitar of Roy Rogers. Among other collaborators are pianist Dave Mathews, who accompanies her on three Bessie Smith numbers, John Sebastian, playing Mississippi John Hurt's lilting guitar part on the title song, guitarist Ernie Hawkins on the rousing "I Belong To that Band" and, on the magnificent "It's a Blessing", Bonnie Raitt. Only "Far Away Blues", a ponderous duet with Tracy Nelson, risks breaking the listener's connection to a record made with ingenuity and love.

Review: Those of us aging folkies who have been listening to Maria Muldaur since her days with the Jim Kweskin Jug Band during the "Sixties Folk Scare," will immediately recognize "Richmond Woman Blues" as a return–as well as a tribute–to her folk and blues roots. I mean, what more perfect way to start this acoustic blues album than with the fine finger-picking of John Sebastian, who was also part of that old New York jug band scene (too bad we don't get to hear his fine blues harp here…oh, well).
As Maria writes in her extensive and interesting liner notes, this was "a labor of love." That's obvious from start to finish the way she carefully selected tunes and visiting artists to pay tribute to the blues of the 20s and 30s. Like Maria, I got to see a few of the songwriters represented here in their old age. The blind street preacher, Reverend Gary Davis, inspired many of us budding guitar players to take a good look at our finger-picking technique. He continues to inspire me in the way he combined the gospel with this rootsy music.
My favorite tunes here are those from the gospel blues tradition. Here Maria "had church" with Bonnie Raitt and her slide guitar in her living room on Mississippi Fred McDowell's "It's a Blessing." On Blind Willie Johnson's "Soul of a Man," Marie is joined by a growly voiced Taj Mahal and Roy Rogers on slide guitar. This rendition is quite a bit grittier than Bruce Cockburn's version on "Nothing But a Burning Light," but either way it's a powerful tune about the condition of every person's soul. Ernie Hawkins joins Maria with his fine finger-picking on Gary Davis' "I Belong to that Band." Hallelujah!
This is one fine acoustic blues album. It reminds me of many nights in the 60s sitting around someone's kitchen table playing the blues until our fingers were raw. Here the same atmosphere is present, but the quality of the singing and playing has gotten better with age.
Thanks, Maria, for bringing to a new generation (and to us aging folkies) this "timeless and most eloquent expression of the human condition and the human spirit." ~ Amazon Customer