REVIEW: No Midnight, but an Oasis nonetheless
Singing star Maria Muldaur and the Garden Of Joy Jug Band delighted a packed Duncan Garage Showroom during two shows Sunday.
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Peter W. Rusland
News Leader Pictorial
Blues chanteuse Maria Muldaur didn’t sing her Grammy hit Midnight At The Oasis during Sunday’s valley visit.
But it didn’t seem to matter — Duncan Garage Showroom’s packed house simply loved Muldaur’s no-nonsense, fun-loving act reminiscent of 1920s honky tonks and gin joints.
“Midnight At The Oasis just didn’t seem to lend it self to jugification.”
She was referring to her back-up Garden Of Joy Jug Band packing a compendium of instruments from washboard, harp and soup can (Lucas Hicks), and galvanized guitar (Kit-Stymee Stovepipe), to upright bass (Kurt McGregor Jensen), plus banjo, mandolin and fiddle (Devin Champlin).
The boys testified to Muldaur’s drive to keep old-time jug music alive; the type of tunes performed by her hero Memphis Minnie.
“I call other types of female music ‘Dear diary music,’” said Muldaur.
But she had none of that.
Instead, Muldaur and the boys punched out some 15 upbeat songs with a lilt of sassy sensuality.
Obscure numbers named I Want To Be Your Chauffeur, Life’s Too Short For That, Bank Failure Blues, The Diplomat, State Street Rag, Shout You Cat, and Don’t You Feel My Leg had Showroom fans howling for more of her earnestly squeaky voice.
Muldaur also wasn’t above displaying her trademark yodeling skills on W-O-M-A-N.
But the Garden Of Joy band would be a delight on its own.
Tight as a cork on a moonshine jug, the guys reprised a semi-Vaudevillian sound fitting Muldaur’s brassy music so perfectly she often let them loose with “Pick it, y’all.”
And pick they did, illustrating the appropriateness of her fresh CD’s title: Good-Time Music For Hard Times.
Jug-blues concert rating: 8.5 swigs out of 10.
