Customer Reviews

Beautiful Isle of Somewhere

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This is a live recording of a concert in Germany a few years ago. It's a solo performance, and Muldaur has taken the deceptively simple sound of his recent work and pared it down to even more deceptively simple arrangements for solo guitar and vocal. I find his work compelling. This is a clean recording, with little crowd noise (except a little polite applause). The song selection is similar to the sets he's played in solo shows in the Los Angeles area in the past couple of years (there's a concert schedule on his web site).

About 2/3 of the songs here are on his two recent albums, Password and Secret Handshake. These live versions have similar feel to those two albums, and listeners who already have them may not feel the need to buy this one. Almost all the songs not on those albums are all on other G.M. compilations, though not always widely available. My advice is to buy this album for the sound of the solo arrangements.

Almost everything here is just beautiful (though I prefer Eric Clapton's version of Motherless Child). To me, "Gee baby, ain't I been good to you" and "Tennessee blues" are the most special cuts, because of their careful treatment here and because I hadn't heard them on his earlier discs.

The first is an old jazz tune (credited to Donald Matthew Redman & Andy Razaf). The lyrics express only love (mostly shown through expensive gifts), but the slow pace and strained tone are more telling than the words. The song's hook is in the thoughts left unsaid. Tennessee blues (Bobby Charles) is a warm feeling soft folk-sounding song about longing for someplace new. Like the rest of the album, the beauty of both these songs is in the careful and sensitive guitar and vocal performance. Absolutely beautiful.

Some other exceptional tracks are "The common cold" (called "Kitchen Door" on Password), "Wild ox moan" and "Just a little while to stay here" from Secret Handshake, all much like their arrangements on the studio albums. "I can't see your face" has an even more haunting sound played on guitar here than on piano (Secret Handshake).

Muldaur's writes a few originals (Got to Find Blind Lemon) but his real strength is to take an old song (blues, jazz, gospel, whatever) and carefully take it apart to find the emotional core, and then to put it back together, keeping its heart fully intact, but with new instrumentation and his own inimitable vocal. He is at his very best when he arranges and performs songs of subtle but deep lyric or musical soul. When he's done, the finished piece is like hand crafted furniture, worn smooth by years of use but sturdy as if it were brand new.

Muldaur might have summed up his recent work by covering "Drop down, mama" (Sleepy John Estes):
"Well I might look like I'm crazy, but I do know right from wrong."
It sounds right to me.

This is a wonderful cd. I saw Geoff Muldaur and Fritz Richmond, (a terrific washtub bass player) a year ago December and this cd is just like having that concert right in my living room (minus the bass). Geoff's bluesy guitar playing is so sweet and he's got an amazing singing voice, full of soul while still being very melodic. Really, this guy is a master at what he does. If you love acoustic blues, enjoy!

My wife and I attended a Geoff Muldaur concert in Fort Worth TX on 11/3/2006. I know because when I bought this CD during an intermission, Geoff signed and dated the cover.

During that show, Geoff mentioned that he plays a Martin guitar diplaying his signature. I checked it out...his guitar is listed on the Martin website. Not a cheap guitar!

Some of his guitar playing reminds me of Gamble Rogers' and Chet Atkins' techniques. Geoff is amazing on that little Martin.

I have say, since I bought this CD, I like Blues more and more.

This review has been used to review other Geoff Muldaur CDs. The main points apply to this effort as well, especially the very good selection here of bluesy material from back in the days.

Over the past year or so I have been asking a recurring question concerning the wherewithal of various male folk performers from the 1960's who are still performing today in the "folk concert" world of small coffeehouses, Universalist-Unitarian church basements and the like. I have mentioned names like Jesse Winchester, Chris Smither and Tom Paxton, among others. I have not, previously mentioned the performer under review, Geoff Muldaur, who is probably best known for his work in the 1960's, not as solo artist, but as part of the famous Jim Kweskin Jug Band and later the equally famous Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Thus, in a way, I had no reason to place him in the pantheon of the solo performers from that period. But things sure are different now.

The following is a review of Geoff Muldaur's "Password" CD, Hightone Records, 2000, by way of an introduction:

"Since my youth I have had an ear for roots music, whether I was conscious of that fact or not. The origin of that interest first centered on the blues, then early rock and roll and later, with the folk revival of the early 1960's, folk music. I have often wondered about the source of this interest. I am, and have always been a city boy, and an Eastern city boy at that. Nevertheless, over time I have come to appreciate many more forms of roots music than in my youth. The subject of the following review is an example.

Geoff Muldaur took almost two decades off from the hurly-burly of traveling the old folk circuit. When I saw him at a coffeehouse upon his return to the scene I asked him what the folk revival of the 1960's was all about. He said it was about being able to play three chords to get the girls to hang around you. Fair enough. I KNOW I took my dates at the time to coffeehouses for somewhat the same reason. I guess it always comes down to that. Kudos to Freud.

Seriously though, Geoff Muldaur was and is about lots more than three chords. He has developed a style that reflects the maturation of his voice and of his interests. And beside that he has always, even in the crazy days of the 1960's, taken a serious attitude to the way that he interprets a song. And furthermore has a very deep knowledge of all sorts of music. Every time I think I know most of the artists in the blues genre he, at a concert, will throw out one more name that I have 'missed'. Example, "At The Christmas Ball" is an old Bessie Smith novelty tune. Geoff gives it his own twist. He likewise does that on "Drop Down Mama" the old Sleepy John Estes version of the tune (I think) and on fellow old time folkie Eric Von Schmidt's "Light Rain". Enough said. Listen."

The above review was written sometime in 2006 several years after he had begun touring again and I had begun to attend his concerts again (Yes, in those small coffeehouses and church basements mentioned above). Recently I picked up at one of his concerts this following historically interesting CD, "Geoff Muldaur, Rare And Unissued-Collectors' Items 1963-2008 (self-produced for a Japanese CD market of jug music aficionados)". In this CD one gets all the sense of musical history, guitar virtuosity and wry humor that was mentioned in the above quoted review. There are many cuts from the Kweskin days, some later Butterfield work (especially a long cover of the blues classic "Boogie Chillin'") and some dud stuff from the early 1980's. All in all though it was worth the purchase.