Trouble making that car payment? Having a tough time selling your house in a stalled real estate market?
Consider the plight of the gal in Memphis Minnie's Tricks Ain't Walking:
Times has done got hard, work done got scarce
Stealing and robbing is taking place
Because tricks ain't walking, tricks ain't walking no more ...
And I'm going to grab somebody if I don't make me some dough.
The Depression-era song is about a prostitute who is penniless and desperate because clients ("tricks") can no longer afford her services. As far as the blues goes, these lyrics are much darker than the gardenvariety "my woman and my dog done left me." This woman is truly desperate.
Maria Muldaur does a lovely job of Tricks Ain't Walking on her about-to-bereleased album ... First Came Memphis Minnie (Stony Plain Records). Muldaur, singing with a husky timbre, strikes a perfect balance between world weariness and the strength that emanates from a steelspined sense of survival.
Muldaur and her band play at Hermann's Jazz Club on Monday and Tuesday night. Most of us remember the singer from her 1974 mega-hit Midnight at the Oasis. Muldaur, phoning recently from her San Francisco home, promised to sing what she affectionately calls "that goofy song" in Victoria.
Fans know Muldaur's much more than the sultry crooner who sang about sheiks and belly dancers.
Over a long and varied career, the 69-year-old has interpreted an incredible range of music: blues, R&B, gospel, funk, country, oldtime favourites. The new collection of Minnie's songs, ... First Came Memphis Minnie, reflects her lifelong passion for the late singer who, like Muldaur, was a pioneer in a male-dominated field. Minnie wasn't only a fine singer, she was a great acoustic and electric guitarist who once bested Big Bill Broonzy in a Chicago "cutting contest."
Muldaur was first introduced to Minnie's music in 1963 by Victoria Spivey in New York City. Spivey, who worked with everyone from Louis Armstrong to Bob Dylan, had just launched her own label. She was interested in recording a new group, the Even Dozen Jug Band (jug bands were big in the '60s).
But Spivey thought the Even Dozen Jug Band needed something extra: sex appeal. That's where Muldaur came in.
"She'd spotted me when I was a young beatnik babe on the emerging folk music scene in the early '60s," Muldaur said. "Spivey said [to the Even Dozen Jug Band], 'You boys sound good, you all play real good. But you should get that little gal I saw, the one with the pigtails. You get her in the band and you'll have something.'
"This was before women's lib," Muldaur added, laughing. "I didn't feel insulted to be asked to join a band strictly for my sex appeal. It sounded like fun."
Spivey took the novice singer, then known as Maria D'Amato, under her wing.
In her apartment, Spivey played recordings of different blues singers for her, seeking material. Muldaur was suitably impressed.
"But the song that somehow made the deepest impression on my young soul was the scratchy 78 of Memphis Minnie singing Tricks Ain't Walking," she said.
For some reason, Muldaur didn't end up recording the song back then. She did perform it often in concert. Now, half a century later, she has included it on ... First Came Memphis Minnie, her 40th album.
For those unfamiliar with them, the recording is an excellent introduction to both Muldaur and Memphis Minnie. It also features guest appearances by such vocalists as Bonnie Raitt, Ruthie Foster, Rory Block and the late Phoebe Snow and Koko Taylor. Snow's contribution is a previously recorded version of Minnie's My Girlish Days. (She died last year after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage).
Muldaur remembers first meeting Snow in 1971 outside a Greenwich Village club. She was a chubby gal in a baggy sweatshirt and jeans. Their mutual connection was Memphis Minnie.
Most musicians, let alone the general public, hadn't heard of her.
"Phoebe pulled out her guitar and sang In My Girlish Days. And played great guitar. And I heard that voice ... my jaw dropped," Muldaur said.
No one on ... First Came Memphis Minnie sings better than Muldaur, who interprets Me and My Chauffeur, Crazy Cryin' Blues and the truly terrific I'm Sailin' with a righteously raspy voice. It strikes me that Muldaur, destined to be forever pegged as Ms. Midnight at the Oasis, is underrated, as are so many talented musicians.
"I totally agree with you," said Holger Petersen, who owns and operates Stony Plain Records. "She's so totally good and dedicated at what she does. I don't think there's anybody I know what works as hard when she has a concept."
Aside from the latest disc, Petersen's label has recorded several roots/blues records with Muldaur. He was originally introduced through their mutual friend Amos Garrett, the guitarist who plays the thrilling solo on Midnight at the Oasis.
For her two-nighter in Victoria, Muldaur performs with her Red Hot Bluesiana Band. They'll play some Memphis Minnie material and other popular Muldaur tunes such as Don't You Feel My Leg and It Ain't the Meat (It's the Motion).
Midnight at the Oasis reached No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1974. It's still her calling card, pulling her to such far-flung locales as Japan and Borneo.
"People ask me if I ever get sick of singing it," Muldaur said before I got the chance to ask. "And my answer is a big, 'Hell no!' "
Maria Muldaur and the Red Hot Bluesiana Band play Monday and Tuesday night at Hermann's Jazz Club. Tickets are $27.50 in advance (Hermann's, Ditch Records, Lyle's Place, eventbrite.com). They also perform Sunday at Vancouver FanClub and Wednesday at Nanaimo's Queen's Hotel.
