Richland Woman Blues : Maria Muldaur : Review : Rolling Stone

Known best for her offbeat 1974 pop hit "Midnight at the Oasis," Maria Muldaur finally puts that camel to bed with a crisply produced, impudent album of stripped-down acoustic blues songs from the 1920s and 1930s. Her twenty-fifth recording in four decades of an eclectic music career is authoritative yet uncomplicated - sometimes sassy (Bessie Smith's "My Man Blues," with Dave Matthews skating the ivories like they were deep-blue ice) and often stirring (Mississippi Fred McDowell's "It's a Blessing," featuring Bonnie Raitt and her torrid slide guitar). She revisits the ribald "Me and My Chauffeur Blues," a song she performed in the Sixties with Jim Kweskin's Jug Band and a favorite of Memphis Minnie, whose swaggering style inspired this authentic, impressive project - one of Muldaur's best. Her journey, which began under the Rev. Gary Davis' tutelage and peaked in the arid pop desert, has landed back in the fertile blues delta - where she's a natural. (RS 870 - June 7, 2001)

ROBBIE WOLIVER