Customer Reviews

Naughty Bawdy & Blue

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Thankfully there is someone carrying the torch to the Next Generation of music lovers. I can say, "Gee, I remember when I heard Alberta Hunter sing 'Handy Man' live in New York City." and count my blessings. Now there is someone who will keep these songs alive for others to discover.

The Chicago Jazz Band is one of the best bands I've heard in ages and they work hand in hand with Maria Muldaur. It's a shame this is just a single cd - they have enough material for a double, I'm sure.

I know there is that DRIVE to hit the ultimate cut of a song, but I think a second version of Empty Bed Blues wasn't quite necessary. I keep thinking there were two or three other songs that could have been used. Coming in at just a shade over 45 min. seems like a big tease.

Coming down to it - she's the best blues singer, she gathers the best musicians and arrangers around her. She just oozes sex appeal and she knows just what she's singing about.

Hopefully she's got a Naughty, Bawdy & Blues Pt. 2 up her sleeves.

If you ever wondered who, if anyone, was going to carry on the tradition of great female blues singers now that the likes of Bessie Smith, Mamie Smith, Sippy Wallace and Memphis Minnie have long been gone from the scene look no further. As I pointed out in a review of her last album, "Sweet Lovin' Ol' Soul",. Maria Muldaur has paid her dues and here she is doing it all over again. This is the third album in series that she started in 2002 to cover the old great blues singers. In the present album she covers the above-mentioned singers and others in a style in which they would surely recognize as their own. These are the classic female blues singers of the 1920's and 30's. Maria is in fast company but she does not miss a beat.

Pay particular attention to her rendition of Victoria Spivey's "Handy Man" (Spivey"s "TB Blues" is nicely done, as well). Check out what the divine Ms. Spivey had to say about Maria on the liner notes. And do check out the covers of Sippy Wallace songs, "Up Country Blues" and "Separation Blues". Damn if Maria does not sound like that unfortunately not well known singer (Maria also covered a Wallace classic "Don't Advertise Your Man" on her last album). Update: I just found out recently (2009) that Sippy Wallace appeared with the Jim Kweskin Jug Band (Maria's old group) in the 1960's. Now it all makes sense, right?

I would also add that I had the pleasure of hearing some of the cuts on this album live in concert by Maria in Cambridge (one of her old stomping grounds in her youthful days with the Kweskin Jug Band back in the sixties) and she can still belt them out. If there is any truth in the assumption that former President Clinton was our first `black' president no one can deny that Maria is our first `black' classic blues singer. And has the stage presence, to boot. The tradition lives. Listen on.

This album is great. I discovered her music back in college in the 90s, and she really is one of the best blues singers around. . .and amazingly productive putting out an album a year since Louisiana Love Call came out in 1992. She has done all types of genres of jazz and blues.

Naughty Bawdy & Blue is one of the best. The songs are mostly uptempo with a great backup of trumpets, trombones, clarinets, saloon style piano, etc. It is urban upscale blues of the 1920s and 1930s, a tribute to the great female singers of the era.

The songwriting is terrific. You don't get this kind of smart, bawdy, and often moving type of songwriting today. The Chicago Jazz Band brings an infectious mood to the songs.

In short: This is a really fun album of great songs, singing, and musicianship. I guarantee you will like it. It is one gem after another to the point you are disappointed when the album ends. My favorites: Down Home Blues, Up the Country Blues, Separation Blues (great duet with Bonnie Raitt), New Orleans Hop Scot Blues, TB Blues, One Hour Mama (very funny), and Yonder Come the Blues.

I cannot imagine anyone not liking this album. It makes me want to seek out the original singers and songwriters of these songs, which is exactly what a tribute album should do.

"Naughty, Bawdy & Blue" is a delightful blues fest. Muldaur acts as musicologist in addition to performer. The booklet has bios for Ma Rainey, Victoria Spivey, Sippie Wallace, Bessie Smith, Mamie Smith, Ethel Waters, Alberta Hunter & Sara Martin. Muldaur's duet with Bonnie Raitt on "Separation Blues" is a delightful showstopper with the band in full Dixieland mode, "For years you dogged me round, but now's the time for me to get you told what's on my mind; I'm going away; please don't ask me to stay." "New Orleans Hop Scop Blues" is another Dixieland diamond with Muldaur's voice sounding every bit like the CD title, "New Orleans is a great big old Southern town where hospitality I have surely found, the population there is very very fair with everything they do." The CD concludes with a Ma Rainey tune that's like a sunny day blues, "Everytime I get a letter, it's always bad news; Everytime I see the mailman, yonder comes the blues." Other tracks like "Handy Man," "Smile," & "One Hour Mama" are also excellent. Muldaur's blues bio is good reading. This set finds her knee deep in the blues. It's riveting listening. Enjoy!

Having been a fan of Maria Muldaur since the jug band days, I can truly say that this is her best yet. Her voice on this set shows a rougher, more mature Maria, giving her blues a more authentic feel, with the James Dapogny Chicago Band a perfect foil. Dapogny, a Jelly Roll Morton authority, also has been adept at recreating arrangements from original 1920's and 30's recordings. All the songs on this set are from that period.
Maria's vocals are dead-on. As we derive from her liner notes, she had hands-on lessons and support from Victoria Spivey and Sippie Wallace. She does them proud here on every track.
One of the highlights is her duet with Bonnie Raitt on "Separation Blues", but listen to the interplay between Rob Bourassa's guitar and Kim Cusack's clarinet on "Handy Man". Cusack's solos throughout are tasteful and perfect. Jon-Erik Kellso, too, is fine, both in his lead trumpet role and all solos.
All in all, a fine disc. I can't think of a better set of vocal blues from the period to have come out in many years. Maria Muldaur rings true on every track.
DJ Carleton
Chalumeau Chauvenist

Back in the early part of the last century, when recorded music was a novelty and songs were sung live and not on radio, audiences were more intimate. There was a genre of music, of songs, which relied on double entendre for lyrics, and wit was a virtue. But it was still the blues. Just about every song on this CD, sung in the whiskey smoke of Muldaur's voice, has lyrics that can be taken more than one way, and full-throated blues you could use to wrap fish. If this is the kind of thing you like to hear, I can't recommend this CD highly enough. Now it's not the kind of thing that's for everybody, and you want to use this kind of CD like you'd use jalapeno's on a pizza - sparingly and to good effect. But man it's good.

For those of you have may have wondered what has become of Maria Muldaur since "Midnight at the Oasis", 33-or-so-years-ago, this c.d. provides the answer. She has become primarily a blues singer. Her voice and (judging by the photo on the c.d. cover) her appearance have become deeper and chestier with the passing years. The back of the liner notes contains an unsolicited review by blues singer Victoria Spivey of the "rising star", Maria d'Amato, ca. 1964. As a valentine to that act of kindness, Ms. Muldaur nee d'Amato records this album of tunes done by Ms. Spivey, Ma Rainey, Alberta Hunter, Bessie Smith and Sippie Wallace.

This is truly a re-creation, complete with orchestrations that sound straight out of Louis Armstrong's "Hot Seven" combo. Imagine if those great singers could have recorded in the digital age, and that's kind of what you have here. Ms. Muldaur sounds great, and this c.d. is guaranteed to make you smile. Two especially noteworthy "smiles" occur on Sippie's "Separation Blues," done here as a duet with Bonnie Raitt. These two old blues-rockers from the '60's sound wonderful together. And the other is the wonderfully bawdy "Handy Man," perfect background music for the next episode of HBO's "Cathouse"!

If you like old blues, you can't go wrong--unless you're a purist who objects to anybody trying to recreate Bessie Smith, et. al. I'm not a purist. Recommended. RC

First,I have to admit a thing or two: I absolutely love Muldaur's last two acoustic blues albums,second I frequently listen 1920s blues queens on my I-pod (I collect with interest & enthusiasm their original music) so naturaly I was very excited and curious about this album.It might be that I'm too familiar with originals but I have impression that while Muldaur honestly loved & enjoyed previous two albums,this is done for the sake of finishing the trilogy.The magic is present only on duet with Bonnie Raitt who gracefuly harmonises from behind and dont push herself too much in front,excatly as young Muldaur did on her 1968 recording of the same song with great late Sippie Wallace.Althought Muldaur herself have talent,ability,attitude and formal connections with some of 1920s blues stars,somewehere at the back of my mind little voice tells me its still a little white girl trying to be big black mama - I don't love Muldaur any less for it,since there's nobody else who does this anyway,she's clearly on a mission to keep the torch going on - but somehow it would make more sense to hear Etta James or Koko Taylor with this kind of material.For heart in the right place and her enthusiasm,four stars anyway.

Just love the delicious old-time racey blues. The harmony with Bonnie Raite is so tight.

Slightly stiff (sorry, bad pun!) arrangements spoil the great old bawdy songs well sung by the still gorgeous Maria. Dixieland/ragtime in a museum with boaters and striped waistcoats.