47 f “J
oe Boyd, who was an old friend of Geoffrey’s and mine, was called in to co-produce with Lenny Waronker, because they figured Joe knew about this quirky, eclectic music that I seemed to like. We didn’t even call it roots music then. My first album
has a Jimmie Rodgers song, Blue Barker’s Don’t You Feel My Leg, a Dolly Parton song, some contemporary stuff by the McGarrigle sisters… I was mixing it up, I was picking songs I liked, I had no plan at all in mind.”
“Midnight At The Oasis was an afterthought because the pro- ducer thought it would be nice if we had one more medium tempo song. The rest is history. It launched my solo career in a big way – not just in the States, but all over the world. It’s now 40 years since Midnight. 40 years have gone by and I just counted up that I put out 40 albums… not bad.”
“I thought for my 40th album I would do a tribute to Mem- phis Minnie. I had recorded a bunch of Memphis Minnie tunes before, but I wanted to make this a group effort and just show how influential she’d been on many other women artists besides myself. So I got together with my sisters in music Bonnie Raitt, Rory Block, Ruthie Foster, Del Rey. Memphis Minnie was innovat- ing. She was very proactive about everything she did. She liberat- ed herself decades before there was such a thing as women’s liber- ation. I think a lot of the other blues women did too. They didn’t stand on a soap box about it or have a bunch of college girls cheer- ing them on with a movement, they just up and did it because that’s what they wanted to do, they didn’t let the social barriers or racial or gender barriers stand in the way of what their mission was for their life and their livelihood and how they wanted to live their life. So, in her songs you get that and just reading about her life, how she didn’t take shit from anybody and just stood up for herself and became what she wanted to become, against all odds. That’s inspiring to me on a personal level. All the other women on the album feel the same way.”
“I have always just been what you might call ‘following my bliss’, just exploring different kinds of American roots music and wanting to get better and better at what I do and then just shar- ing the joy I feel about some of this music with my audience, I mean, why would I do a Memphis Minnie tribute album, I’m not Memphis Minnie… and nor could I ever sing that stuff as good as she did… but as a way of shining a little light on somebody that deserves a lot more recognition. And I feel that way about a lot of the music I choose. It’s about sharing your passion with other peo- ple and with an audience and bringing joy to people.”
First Came Memphis Minnie – A Loving Tribute (Stony Plain)
www.mariamuldaur.com
Maria with Bill Wyman, 2013 F
Photo: Dave Peabody
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