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And I have to say - I know people ask me that question with bated breath, or they used to - what did you have to
overcome to be successful in a male-dominated business? I was in the music for the music's sake. I wasn't trying to
be a pop star or a rock star or anything like that. I was just following my passion and, you know, really passionately
engaged in the making of the music itself.
And I always had support and encouragement from all kinds of male musicians, Dr. John, Ry Cooder, you know, Jim
Kweskin. Bob Dylan has always been very, very encouraging to me. And everybody I encountered in the studio. I
never felt this big prejudice that people are hoping I'll spill the beans about. I just have always been accepted, and I
have a lot of very dear male musician friends, people like Taj Mahal, for instance, and just so many. Bill Wyman has
always been very encouraging to me. Prejudice might be going on somewhere, but I never encountered it, so I guess
I'm very blessed.

FD: Absolutely, absolutely. You mentioned Taj Mahal, and I also want to talk to you about Taj in a minute, but I did
see you perform years back in the mid-'70s with the Jerry Garcia Band. You were one of Jerry Garcia's backing vocalists.
What's your memories of Jerry Garcia?

MM: Oh, wow. It's funny you should ask today, thank you. Dead & Company — the band’s modern incarnation, are
holding Grateful Dead concerts in Golden Gate Park here to commemorate the memory of Jerry.

Right after my first hit started climbing the charts, ‘Midnight at the Oasis’, I connected with Jerry's band leader and
musical director and bass player, a lovely young man named John Kahn. He was in the Jerry Garcia band as opposed
to the Grateful Dead. This was Jerry's own band. And he was one of the loves of my life. In fact, I moved from L.A.
up to the San Francisco area to be with John. And I would always go to their gigs.

Clip - MIDNIGHT AT THE OASIS

They had Ron Tutt. Elvis' drummer who was also drummer with Jerry and John, and the Garcia Band. And I used to
love to get up and jam with them. I'd play tambourine and sing a little backup sometimes. And Jerry eventually just
asked me to join the band, which I happily did. And so, from about 77 to 1980, I was in the band and recorded one
of their albums with them “Cats Under The Stars”. I performed all over the country with them. It was quite an
experience, let me tell you!

FD: Now, getting to the new album, number 44, “One-Hour Mama: The Blues of Victoria Spivey”. It features special
guests and friends of yours, Elvin Bishop and Taj Mahal. Both Elvin and Taj are obviously legends in their own musical
rights, still going strong like yourself, they are on two tracks, ‘What Makes You Act Like That’ with Elvin Bishop, and
‘Gotta Have What It Takes’ with Taj Mahal.

Clip FROM GOTTA HAVE WHAT IT TAKES

MM: I really did a lot of research to find the music. You know, Victoria wrote and recorded many, many songs,
probably close to a couple of hundred all told. And I always like to find the more unusual songs when I'm doing a
project paying tribute to somebody: Like Memphis Minnie, which I did some years ago, you know. I want to find the
songs that are a little more off the beaten track. And that's part of my motivation in doing these tribute albums ----
to shine a light on maybe a lesser known artist who deserves more recognition and just share their music with a
contemporary audience and hope that that'll inspire them to dig around and learn more about the artists themselves.
So, in the case of Victoria Spivey, I dug around and found what I think are some of the more unusual of her tunes.
And one of the things I discovered was that she had done lots of really fun duets with the great blues guitar pioneer
Lonnie Johnson, who was a contemporary of hers.
And they had recorded back in the day, but they also had reconnected in the 60s in New York City and were recording
and performing together then. And I found two really fun duets. One's called ‘What Makes You Act Like That’, which
I recorded with my old friend, the great blues legend, Elvin Bishop. And the other one is called ‘You Gotta Have What
It Takes’, which I recorded with my dear old friend, Taj Mahal.

Both of them have that wonderful back and forth repartee, you know, sort of the battle between the sexes going on
in a very humorous, tongue-in-cheek way. Back and forth between a man and a woman. We're usually where the
woman's getting the guy told, you know, like, “let me get you told” kind of thing. And they're just really fun to do.

I've done that sort of thing with Taj on other albums before. But I think both of these songs were great vehicles for
my collaboration with each of these great blues artists. And I just want to point out on “what makes you act like that”