Maria Muldaur at Stanhope House Wednesday
By ROBERT PRICE
She created a musical genre and didn't even realize it. Maria Muldaur, whose 1974 hit “Midnight at the Oasis” was actually out of character, has spent the last 50 years fusing folk, blues, jazz, gospel, bluegrass, country, even jug band music.
Nowadays they call that Americana.
“Someone who was interviewing me about 10 years ago said ‘you've single-handedly invented a genre. You were doing it first.' Now everybody's doing it,” Muldaur said in a recent
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telephone interview before a show at Fort Worden in Washington.
Muldaur, who was part of the Greenwich Village scene and the American folk music revival in the early 1960s, is celebrating 50 years of her unique brand of Americana and 40 years since her unlikely, light-hearted hit song touched a war-weary America. She'll bring her “Way Past Midnight” multi-media retrospective show to one of her old stomping grounds, The Stanhope House, on Wednesday, Oct. 22.
The show features Muldaur and her band performing hits and fan favorites from every stage of her career. Muldaur will weave in stories about her many collaborations with famous musicians and what the musical landscape was like in the '60s and '70s, and she'll share lots of old photographs.
The show is also a brief celebration of her 40th album, “First Came Memphis Minnie” (2012), before the 71-year-old singer heads back into the studio to record her 41st. Muldaur (then Maria D'Amato) first appeared on “The Even Dozen Jug Band” record on the Elektra label in 1964.
Muldaur got the idea for her “Way Past Midnight” retrospective from girl-group rock and roll legend Ronnie Spector, who's also 71. Spector does intermittent “Behind the Beehive” shows and one of her current Ronettes is Jenni Muldaur, Maria's daughter.
“It's a loose scrapbook of her career. I thought it was wonderful. So I went home and found a lot of fabulous old photos and put together this show,” Muldaur said.
“It seemed like a good time to reflect on where this musical journey has taken me. ... We revisit songs I haven't done in 20 or 30 years. Going back, learning them again, it's like rediscovering and reconnecting with long lost friends.”
The success of “Midnight at the Oasis” was a happy accident. When Muldaur was finishing up her debut solo album for Reprise Records in 1973, she needed one more song. The album already was a precursor of Americana with blues/folk/country numbers like Jimmie Rodgers' “Any Old Time,” Dolly Parton's “My Tennessee Mountain Home,” Dr. John's “Three Dollar Bill” and Blue Lu Barker's “Don't You Feel My Leg (Don't You Get Me High).” Among the sidemen were Clarence White, Ry Cooder, David Grisman, Dr. John, Jim Keltner, Jim Gordon, Freebo, Klaus Voormann, Amos Garrett and David Nichtern, the composer of the song. “Midnight at the Oasis” was unlike anything else on the album.
“I put it on the album as an afterthought,” Muldaur said. “The producer thought it needed a medium-tempo song. He brought David Nichtern out to play this little love song he'd written. And the rest is history. It turned into my first big hit and just launched my career.
“I've never heard a song like it before or since,” she said.
The tune is a playfully suggestive desert love song. It reached No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1974 and was nominated for two Grammys — Record of the Year and Song of the Year. The self-titled album peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200.
While the Grammy-nominated “Midnight at the Oasis” may be her most recognizable song, there is plenty more to Muldaur's repertoire. Her 2001 release, “Richland Woman Blues,” was nominated for a Grammy and by the Blues Foundation as Best Traditional Blues Album of the Year, as was the followup, “Sweet Lovin' Ol' Soul.” Her 2008 album, “Yes We Can!” featured a “Women's Voices for Peace Choir” of Bonnie Raitt, Joan Baez, Jane Fonda, Odetta, Phoebe Snow and Holly Near, among others. Another collaborative effort, “Maria Muldaur & Her Garden of Joy,” brought Muldaur her sixth Grammy nomination and another Blues Foundation nod for Best Traditional Blues Album in 2009. In the “Garden of Joy” were two old friends from the Even Dozen Jug Band, John Sebastian and David Grisman, along with Dan Hicks.
Muldaur's 2011 release, “Steady Love,” a contemporary electric blues album, reached No. 1 on the Living Blues Chart. Her most recent album, the milestone 40th of her career, is a tribute to pioneering blues women, some of whom joined her on the project — Bonnie Raitt, Phoebe Snow, Koko Taylor, Ruthie Foster and Rory Block.
In her “Way Past Midnight” show, Muldaur performs songs from this more recent period, but her entire odyssey through American music is represented.
“Making an album a year for 40 years and touring behind every one, a lot of the old favorites have kind of been pushed to the back of the shelf. I thought, my fans are my family, and if they want to hear the old favorites, well maybe it's time to go back and honor those requests,” Muldaur said.
Muldaur's career began in 1963 when she was the only woman in a band of college students who merged their unique talents into the Even Dozen Jug Band. Learning their craft on Sundays in Washington Square Park, Stefan Grossman, Joshua Rifkin, Steve Katz, David Grisman, John Sebastian, et al, put out one hit record, played Carnegie Hall, appeared on The Tonight Show ... and disbanded. Going their own separate ways, each found a niche in music, including Muldaur, who played fiddle in the jug band but was always a blues singer at heart. And a cute one at that. As guitarist Grossman, now a Sparta resident, once recalled, “everybody in the band was in love with Maria.”
Muldaur went on to a short-lived stint with Jim Kweskin's Jug Band and an equally short-lived marriage to one if that band's members, Geoff Muldaur, before finally setting out on her own in 1972. Shortly thereafter, a pop song called “Midnight at the Oasis,” in one fell swoop, set her up for a long and memorable career singing whatever struck her fancy.
“I was just being exposed to all the various forms of roots music, none of which was chart-topping music. I never dreamed I'd make a recording when I started out. Then little old me got to play and record with all those incredible people,” Muldaur said, referring to the all-star lineup on her debut album.
“No one was more amazed than I was to find myself in the studio with those people. But it's never been about big studio ambitions. It's all about loving the people who play and sing beautifully, and establishing a connection,” she said.
Muldaur's second album, “Waitress in a Donut Shop,” produced a hit with her rendition of the classic “I'm A Woman.” Soon she found herself opening for The Grateful Dead. In the late 1970s, she joined The Dead as a backing vocalist. Arond the same time she began collaborating with bluegrass icon Peter Rowan.
While the commercial success was relatively short-lived, Muldaur continued to make music her way. And 50 years later, that's still the secret to her success.
If you go ...
What: “Way Past Midnight” with Maria Muldaur; Kim Brewer Band opens
When: Wednesday, Oct. 22, 8 p.m. (doors open at 6 p.m.)
Where: The Stanhope House, 45 Main St., Stanhope
Admission: $20
Tickets, information: stanhopehousenj.com, 973-347-7777