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Maria Muldaur—One Hour Mama—Nola Blue ASIN :
B0F7J1JXTM

This is Maria’s tribute to one of her inspirations, classic blues

singer Victoria Spivey who’s heyday was the 1920s and 30s
but who was still around in the 50s and 60s mentoring the
young Maria and also giving a recording debut to Bob Dylan.
‘My Handy Man’ gets us off to a great start with Maria getting

every ounce of innuendo out of unlikely lines like “he shakes
my ashes, greases my griddle, churns my butter, strokes my

fiddle…” with a tasty acoustic guitar solo from Rob Bourassa.
Elvin Bishop shares the vocals with Maria on ‘What Makes You Act Like That?’ and ‘Don’t Love
No Married Man’ and ‘Dreaming of You’ have Maria singing of love.

‘Organ Grinder Blues’ (Oooooh Mrs!) sees Maria reuniting with the New Orleans band Tuba
Skinny for a down and dirty NOLA blues. Elsewhere she’s backed by amongst others Neil
Fontaro and Chris Burns (piano), Danny Caron (guitar), Johnny Bones (sax), Steve Height (bass)
and Beaumont Beaullieu (drums), plus on 3 tracks by James Dapogny’s Chicago Jazz Band. The

title track sees Maria (Victoria) stating her sexual preferences— “I’m a one hour mama, so no
one minute poppa ain’t no man for me…” and ‘Funny Feathers’ and ‘Gotta Have What It Takes’

have her teaming up with Tuba Skinny again, with Taj Mahal also joining her on vocals on ‘Gotta
Have What It Takes’.

Maria now sings with the authority that she perhaps didn’t quite have as a younger woman –

listen to her perfect performance of the stunning ‘T-B Blues’—but she also still has that sultry,
sexy delivery to make the most of Victoria’s lusty lyrics.
Graham Harrison

Monster Mike Welch—Keep Living ‘Til I Die—
Independent

I once saw a young ‘Monster’ Mike Welch playing at a blues

open mic in a club in Boston and he was terrific, much better
than anyone else who got up. This is his sixth solo album
and it was recorded at Kid Andersen’s Greaseland studio in

California but Mike uses his own band rather than Kid’s
session players, they are Brooks Milgate (keyboards), Brad
Hallen (bass) and Fabrice Bessouat (drums). We start with

three Welch originals ‘Keep Living Until I Die’ a mid-tempo
blues with his biting lead guitar, ‘Love Me Baby’ is similar and ‘Your Problem to Solve’ ups the
pace with more great guitar. ‘Good to Me as I Am to You’ is the song that Eric Clapton played

on with Aretha Franklin, done here as an instrumental slow blues and Mike also does an electric
band version of Robert Johnson’s ‘Hell Hound on My Trail’.

Mike covers Rick Estrin’s song ‘I Finally Hit the Bottom’ – possibly a reference to his suffering
from long Covid, ‘She Makes Time’ is a swinging rockabilly song (Mike switches to a Gibson 330