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Album Details

• Artist: Maria Muldaur
• Album: Good Music For Hard Times
• Label: Stony Plain
• Year of Release: 2009
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: patchen on 2009-11-06

 

Boomers self-mythologizing has become literally a new industry. Have you seen the commercial where the guy says "in the 60s, I was all about freedom. In my 60s, why stop now?" Of course, this and most such comparisons seem to omit boomers' ultra-materialistic 20s-50s. but hey, what's 40 years among rebels? Anyway, while "Good Time Music for Hard Times" is, on the surface, another back-to-the-roots exercise. Muldaur, best known for her lite 70s hit "Midnight at the Oasis," calls up friends/stars like John Sebastian and Dan Hicks, and records fave covers.

Yet "Good Time Music for Hard Times" rings a bit truer than that. These traditional jug band tunes are delivered in an obvious spirit of fun as well as reverence for the material. This not nostalgia; this is joyfully keeping alive music that inspired the artists and can be passed on to a new generation.

Together with Sebastian, Hicks, Taj Mahal, Dave Grisman and others, Muldaur works her way through chestnuts like "Garden of Joy" "The Panic is On," and a medley of "Life's Too Short / When Elephants Roost In Bamboo Trees," with an ease that shows a knowledge of the music and a deep love of it.

With a cover painting by R. Crumb, "Good Time Music for Hard Times" means what it says: it is a valentine of good vibes for times of struggle. The message Maria Muldaur and company seem to want to pass on is that hard times have always been with us, and hope, with a little fun, can be had even you're down and out

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