Geoff & Maria Muldaur – Pottery Pie; Sweet Potatoes

GEOFF & MARIA MULDAUR

Pottery Pie

Omnivore Recordings

omnivorerecordings.com/shop/pottery-pie/

Jim Kweskin & the Jug Band were early favorites of mine when I was first getting into music and record collecting as a kid in the 1960s so I was already familiar with (and a fan of) the husband and wife team of Geoff & Maria Muldaur – stalwarts of the Kweskin band – when they recorded Pottery Pie in 1968, the first of two LPs they would release as a duo. Remarkably, Pottery Pie and the other LP, Sweet Potatoes, have just recently been reissued for the first time in North America.

Geoff and Maria alternated lead vocals on Pottery Pie, an album that seemed to point in directions both would go on to explore later on. Geoff’s version of “Death Letter Blues,” for example, is the kind of track he’d record some years later as a member of Paul Butterfield’s Better Days, while Maria’s version of “Me and My Chauffeur Blues,” presaged the tribute to Memphis Minnie she would produce years later.

Geoff’s other highlights on Pottery Pie include a great version of “New Orleans Hopscop Blues,” originally recorded by Bessie Smith, that combines an updated classic blues feel with a New Orleans-style horn arrangement, and a soulful rendition of “Prairie Lullaby,” a classic recorded by Jimmie Rodgers in 1932, that features great playing by Bill Keith on pedal steel and an uncredited fiddler (who I suspect may have been Maria).

And I must mention Geoff’s fun version of “Brazil,” a classic Brazilian jazz tune that would go on to give Terry Gilliam’s film its name when he used this recording in the movie.

Among Maria’s highlights is her sexy definitive version of Bob Dylan’s “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” and the traditional gospel song “Trials, Troubles, Tribulations” with nice harmonies from Betsy Siggins.

But my absolute favorite track on Pottery Pie is Maria’s gorgeous version of Hoagy Carmichael’s “Georgia On My Mind,” with a sublime electric guitar solo by Amos Garrett, perhaps the first of many notable guitar solos Amos would play on albums with both Muldaurs.

GEOFF & MARIA MULDAUR

Sweet Potatoes

Omnivore Recordings

omnivorerecordings.com/shop/sweet-potatoes/

While Pottery Pie seemed to be equal parts Geoff and Maria, Geoff dominates Sweet Potatoes, their second and final LP, released in 1972. It’s a charming album, but just a tad disappointing that only three of the 10 songs featured Maria.

That said, some of my favorites of Geoff’s leads include “Havana Moon,” a very atypical Chuck Berry tune given a bluesy arrangement featuring Paul Butterfield on harmonica, and “Dardanella,” a New Orleans jazz standard whose intricate arrangement points at the kind of work Geoff would do decades later with his album of Bix Biederbecke material.

Another favorite is the languid but delightful version of Hoagy Carmichael’s “Lazy Bones,” with a lead vocal and patented guitar solo by Amos Garrett, that certainly presaged the duo album they recorded on Flying Fish after playing together in Paul Butterfield’s Better Days.

Maria’s three lead vocals are also highlights of Sweet Potatoes. These include “Blue Railroad Train,” a Delmore Bothers song that Doc Watson introduced to the folk revival in the mid’60s, and the title track, a lovely little number on which she’s accompanied by pianist Jeff Gutcheon, the song’s composer.

But my absolute favorite is Maria’s beautiful version of “Lover Man (Oh Where Can You Be),” a jazz standard sung decades earlier by Billie Holiday. This version features another dreamy guitar solo by Amos as well as strings and woodwinds – including Geoff on clarinet. 

I should note also that the cover painting for Sweet Potatoes was by the great folk and blues performer and visual artist Eric Von Schmidt.

These two albums are much more than footnotes in the discographies of two artists would go on to give us – and still continue to give us a half-century later – much great music.

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--Mike Regenstreif

Notre Dame de Grass – That’s How the Music Begins

NOTRE DAME DE GRASS
That’s How the Music Begins 
notredamedegrass.ca

In my Montreal Gazette review of their first album, New Canada Road, in 2007, I wrote, “Notre Dame de Grass may well be the finest pure-bluegrass outfit to come out of Montreal in decades. In bandleader Matthew Large they’ve got a solid singer, guitarist and songwriter who understands and respects the bluegrass traditions and knows how to create a unique sound while playing within the genre’s rules.”

Seven years down the bluegrass road, Notre Dame de Grass is a somewhat different band, but there’s really no doubt that the version of the band that has gelled over the years since that first album is, indeed, the finest pure-bluegrass band to have ever come out of Montreal – and certainly one of the finest to have ever come out of all of Canada.

Matt Large is still leading Notre Dame de Grass and Belgian-born banjo player Guy Donis, one of the finest purveyors of the Bill Keith-influenced melodic banjo style, is still adding his fine playing to the band's sound and some great instrumentals to the repertoire, but the other three musicians – bassist and singer Andrew Horton, mandolinist Joe Grass and fiddler Josh Zubot – all joined the band since the last album was recorded and have each contributed to making it an even stronger unit.

That’s How the Music Begins is a textbook example of everything a traditional bluegrass fan would want in an album. There’s some excellent original material, some traditional standards, some outstanding instrumentals, and some gospel, all played and sung within the standard bluegrass instrumentation and vocal styles defined by Bill Monroe and other first-generation bluegrassers like the Stanley Brothers and Flatt & Scruggs.

While there are lots of contemporary bluegrass bands who are technically great, Notre Dame de Grass is part of a relatively rarer number of bands with both a unique character and a superior repertoire.

Matt is a fine bluegrass songwriter and contributes such songs as the title track, a driving number about the joys of getting the musicians together to play, and “Edmunston Nights,” a reflection on escaping small town life.

But the absolute highlight of the album, and one of the finest new bluegrass songs I’ve heard in years is Matt’s “New Canada,” a homage to the waves of immigration that have continued to make Canada the interesting, multicultural country it has developed into over the years.

Other highlights include “Mount Royal Backstep” and “St. Jean Express,” two fine banjo-driven instrumentals written by Guy, and a haunting version of “Satan’s Jewel Crown,” one of several songs featuring fine lead vocals by Andrew.

Another definite highlight is Matt’s powerful, album-ending, solo version of the traditional folksong, “Cowboy’s Life is a Dreary Life,” that he sings in a pure, traditional a cappella style.

Hopefully, it won’t be seven years until the next Notre Dame de Grass album.

Pictured: Notre Dame de Grass at the Montreal Folk Festival on the Canal, June 21, 2014 (Photo: Mike Regenstreif)

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--Mike Regenstreif

Maria Muldaur -- Maria Muldaur & her Garden of Joy

MARIA MULDAUR
Maria Muldaur & her Garden of Joy
Stony Plain
mariamuldaur.com

Round about 1970, when I was still in high school and getting into music in a big way, I picked up Greatest Hits, a 2-LP set drawn from the 1960s recordings of Jim Kweskin & the Jug Band. That album hooked me on the Kweskin Band and sent me off in search of other revival-era jug bands and the Depression-era jug bands from Memphis and area that started it all.

Kweskin’s was a great band. Along with Kweskin, some of the other players included jug player extraordinaire Fritz Richmond, banjo legend Bill Keith, acoustic blues great Geoff Muldaur, and the ultra-sexy singer and fiddler Maria D’Amato, who at some point back in the day became Maria Muldaur when she married Geoff. I still listen to the Kweskin albums 40 years later.

In the 40 or so years since leaving the Kweskin Band, Maria did a couple of duo albums with Geoff and then a long list of solo albums that have moved through the realms of pop, jazz and blues. Finally, with Maria Muldaur & her Garden of Joy, she’s come back to a full set of jug band music -– and it’s a terrific, infectiously fun, set.

Many of these tunes date back to the 1930s heyday of jug band music (or even earlier). It truly does feel like being in a garden of joy listening to Maria and a sublime collection of jug-loving musicians romp through old tunes like “Shout You Cats,” and “The Panic is Gone.” One of my favourites is “The Ghost of the St. Louis Blues,” a kind of spooky, Dixieland parody of the W.C. Handy tune first recorded by Emmett Miller (but which, I confess, I first heard by Leon Redbone).

Along with the vintage material, there are a couple of newish Dan Hicks compositions and Hicks himself turns up to duet with Maria in a great medley of a couple of old novelty tunes.

There are lots of great musicians playing on the CD including John Sebastian and David Grisman who, along with Maria, were in the short-lived Even Dozen Jug Band in her pre-Kweskin days. Other players include Taj Mahal, Suzy Thompson and Jim Rothermel. One track, “Sweet Lovin’ Ol’ Soul,” is repeated from Maria’s 2005 album of the same name and features the late Fritz Richmond, Maria’s old Kweskin band mate, on jug.

Great stuff. More, please!

--Mike Regenstreif