"Geoff Muldaur, who's inexplicably unsung outside a vast circle of admiring musicians such as Bonnie Raitt and Richard Thompson, has never stood still for too long. From his 1960s Cambridge days in the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, through his folk-blues records alone and with then-wife Maria Muldaur, and up to his recent reimagining of jazzman Bix Beiderbecke's music, Muldaur has never been easy to pin down. Nor would he want to be.
It's not surprising, then, that his latest album takes him down another rabbit hole. Out today, "Texas Sheiks'' pairs Muldaur with a top-notch band of roots musicians (including the late Stephen Bruton, Muldaur's friend who partly inspired the collaboration). The collection of loose and lively roots music spans everything from shuffling country-blues to old-time parlor songs and even reunites Muldaur with Kweskin on two tunes.
Muldaur, who lives in Los Angeles ("which is God's joke on me - I never liked the place, and I still don't,'' but he's got a nice lady out there), says it's just par for the course.
"You know me, I bounce around from project to project trying to come up with the next crazy idea,'' Muldaur says, adding that his upcoming plans include a project in the British Isles, working on his chamber works, and eventually making an "electric badass album with horns.''
Muldaur played Sunday's gala fund-raiser in Boston for Betsy Siggins's new project, the New England Folk Music Archives, and he has a solo show Thursday at Johnny D's (8:30 p.m., $15). " Interview with Geoff is here.
From Chatanooga:
New folk music school seeks to build lasting bonds between students
By: Casey Phillips
For a craft that's traditionally passed on in a social context, there are few organizations set up to teach folk music in a classroom setting.
About a year ago, local musicians/teachers Christie Burns and Matt Evans decided to try to change that. The result of their efforts, the Mountain Music Folk School, will begin its first eight-week semester Sept. 28.
Everything about the school's operation, from the local musicians who comprise its teaching staff to the way the courses are taught, ties into the fundamental goal of building Chattanooga's musical community, Ms. Burns said.
"I'm really excited about that possibility of the social mixing that could go on in these classes," she said. "People will come from all kinds of backgrounds and be pulled together by their interest in music."
The classes will meet weekly for 75-minute sessions at three Southside venues, the Bluegrass Grill (55 E. Main Street), Area 61 (61 E. Main Street) and GreenSpaces (63 E. Main Street).
Courses are available for a variety of instruments and styles, from African guitar and clawhammer banjo to harmony singing and a world-music ensemble. Additional one-day workshops throughout the semester will offer intense studies of more specific styles.
Based on participation during this first semester, Ms. Burns and Mr. Evans said they hope to offer four or five semesters a year, the next one slated for January.
In June, Mr. Evans and Ms. Burns used money from CreateHere's MakeWork Grant program to bring the executive director of the Folk School of St. Louis, Colleen Heine, to Chattanooga to help them hone their ideas.
Ms. Heine and Latitude Advisers' Mike Harrell, the school's business consultant, have played key roles in making the project a reality, Mr. Evans said.
"Mike Harrell has been a huge part of helping us figure out how to make something like this work," he said. "There's no way this would be happening without the grant and specifically the part that's paying for the business consulting."
Like the Folk School of St. Louis, the Mountain Music Folk School's structure will emphasize the importance of group learning over private instruction.... (Details here.
"One by one, the musicians drifted to the white gazebo at the center of the shady park, took seats on the wooden bench and opened their cases, lifting out guitars and violins. Pages rustled as new songs were passed around, and chords tentatively floated on the thick summer air.
The musicians' welcoming voices and gentle laughter, muffled in the humid stillness of the day's end, were suggestive of many evenings spent together sharing the easy companionship of music.
Bud Harmon, blue sweatband circling close-cropped white hair, began strumming an old Kingston Trio folk song about an unfortunate rider trapped on the Boston subway. Chris Nelson and Phil McVay's heads bobbed in time with the music. They recognized the song and began to play along.
David Hatcher, a lean man sporting a carefully trimmed beard and short white hair, loped up onto the gazebo and removed his fiddle and a handful of harmonicas.
Hatcher started the group a couple of years ago, putting an ad in the paper inviting people of any skill level to meet at a local library branch and play folk music and bluegrass.
The group was slow in getting off the ground, but now has a core of five to six members who never miss a session. They meet every two weeks for a couple of hours, alternating between Grace Court Park in Winston-Salem, a band shell at Central Park in King and the Reynolda branch of the Forsyth County Public Library.
Although the overall trend of the songs offered up for the group to play is folk music, the tunes wander into bluegrass, country/western, ragtime, pop, soft rock and the Beatles. A short classical number sometimes slips in as well.
"I thought I'd play a Willie Nelson song tonight," Harmon said, as the folk song died away.
"What's that -- Billie Nelson?" someone asked, pretending not to hear.
"Willie. Willie Nelson. He wrote it, and I'm gonna destroy it." The others laughed, and Harmon began growling, "Mama, Don't Let Your Children Grow Up to Be Cowboys."
The group listened closely and began to join in one at a time, like children watching a chance to hop onto a revolving carousel. Resonant guitar chords swelled as the long strains of a fiddle began to unlimber, peppered with haunting notes of a harmonica.
Strollers paused nearby to listen. Benches began to fill as colorfully suited bicyclists ghosted noiselessly around the edges of the park, then circled around for another pass.
The lingering heat of the day seemed to settle into the bowl of the park like a thick, warm soup. The muffled sounds of the city dissolved with the warmth of guitar and violin as the daylight faded in the gloaming.