Unlike almost all other singers of her Baby Booming generation, Maria Muldaur sings with a style the allows her age to be an advantage instead of an anachronism. Choosing traditional Americana, gospel and blues, her sandied Mildred Bailey voice ages perfectly into this genre, instead of sounding out of sync with rockers of her same demograph.
This latest album mixes her styles of folk, jazz and gospel with the ragtime sounding band of Todd Burdick/tub, Shaye Cohn/cor, Barnabus Jones/tb, Jason Lawrence/banj, Craig Flory/cl, Greg Sherman-Max Bien Kahn/g and Robin Rupuzzi/wash for a dozen optimistic overtures.
Muldaur’s strength has always been the ability to express hope and not chops, and the waitress in a donut shop serves her plate well on the perky two stepper “I Like You Best Of All” and the fun “I Go For That”. Flory taps into his inner Pee Wee Russell on the bluesy “Delta Bound” and gets weary with Maria and Jones on “Got The South In My Soul”. Muldaur goes hot’cha on “Road of Stone” and preaches it on “Big City Blues” all with the relaxed demeanor of a woman confident in her skin. An oasis in a current musical desert.