“Blues and other types of folk music are social in nature. As we as a species become less and less connected due to the use of non-human intermediary devices, we certainly need that which can keep us connected in more wholesome ways... a good meal with friends, a chit chat, a quilting bee, sports, dance… music.”

Geoff Muldaur: A Knight of Roots Music

Multi-talented musician, singer and composer, Geoff Muldaur is one of the great voices and musical forces to emerge from the folk, blues and folk-rock scenes centered in Cambridge, MA and Woodstock, NY. During the 1960's and '70's, Geoff made a series of highly influential recordings as a founding member of the Jim Kweskin Jug Band and the Paul Butterfield's Better Days group, as well as collaborations with then-wife Maria and other notables (Bonnie Raitt, Eric Von Schmidt, Jerry Garcia, etc.). He left the stage and recording world in the mid-1980's for a working sabbatical but continued, however, to hone his craft, albeit 'flying beneath radar'. He composed scores for film and television, and produced off-beat albums for the likes of Lenny Pickett and the Borneo Horns and the Richard Greene String Quartet. Geoff's his definitive recording of "Brazil" provided the seed for - and was featured in - Terry Gilliam's film of the same title. With his magical voice and singular approach to American music intact, Geoff is once again touring the world. He performs in concert halls, performance spaces, clubs and festivals througout the US, Canada, Japan and Europe.

(Geoff Muldaur, a master of American roots music / Photo © by Sacha de Boer)

Geoff may be heard from time to time as a guest on Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion and has been featured on a variety of National Public Radio shows, including Weekend Edition, All Things Considered, Fresh Air with Terry Gross, and The World with Lisa Mullins. Geoff's albums, The Secret Handshake, Password, Private Astronomy and Texas Sheiks have met with high critical acclaim and feature Geoff's unusually crafted interpretations of classic, oftentimes obscure, American material as well as his own unique compositions. In addition to tours and recording, Geoff continues to apply his arranging skills to a variety of projects for albums and film. Although he is known as a musicians musician, it is clearly his voice that most identifies him. For decades, musician Geoff Muldaur has been known as a master of American blues and jazz. But for his latest album “His Last Letter” (2022), a double-LP box and CD set, he took a more unorthodox approach than his prior projects. Muldaur traveled to Amsterdam in search of classical European musicians who would perform decidedly non-classical and non-European music.

Interview by Michael Limnios                 Archive: Geoff Muldaur, 2019 Interview

How do you think that you have grown as an artist since you first started making music? What has remained the same about your music-making process?

I’ve always created arrangements and approaches to music, including my singing, in an instinctual way. I have little structural or conceptual concern. Each situation is an open book. The only “growth” I’ve experienced is that of a gradual accumulation of street learning…. working with players, studying their instruments, reading classical scores, exploring chordal moves in Jazz, classical music, etc. I hear what I hear and I try to: first, figure out what I’m hearing and second, fashioning a way to realize it.

What moment changed your music life the most? What is the driving force behind your continuous support for your music?

In 1962-63 I was working as an operating room orderly at the Mass General Hospital. I was gigging a bit at the Club 47 and the Cafe Yana, but not so much that I would give up my day job. In the early Spring of 1963, Jim Kweskin and David Simon decided to form a jug band and Jim asked me to join. I did. Within a year we were playing Carnegie Hall and the Steve Allen Show, etc etc. Although there have been many stepping stones in my musical life, Jim’s call to me (or he may have asked me in person) has to be the moment that delivered the most impact.

”I have no desire to present my music to "the new generation.” This is a generality, but on the whole I am not interested.  If we were in a Golden Age, I might think differently (e.g. Vienna 1780-1830, USA Jazz 1915-1970). I write for musicians, for myself, for the Muse and for the wonderful folks on this planet that “get” what I do.” (Photo: Geoff Muldaur, Sleepy Man Blues 1963)

What characterize your music philosophy? What's the balance in music between technique (skills) and soul/emotions?

Musical philosophy… Simply put, I have little regard for idiom. I enjoy music from disparate sources, and I assume my influences are wide-spread.

What is technique?… the ability to play articulately… with facility… in time… to pitch. Or is it? Technique, as most people understand it, can be a musical death trap unless married to the player's natural instincts and acquired sensibilities. All the greats, be they early blues musicians or classical composers are unique. Take B.B. King. Tens of thousands of guitar players have copied his style… at least “technically.” But no one can match him. His simple, personal style cannot be matched. Is B.B. King’s special touch technique? We musicians need “technique" per se… scales, articulation, repetition for muscle memory, etc. but we are inevitably left with the subjective. I certainly cannot play the guitar with the "technique" that some players have, but they in turn, cannot imagine what I imagine or realize it in the way I realize it.

“Technique” in itself doesn’t impress me. The finest music is a mystery.

Why is it important to we preserve and spread the blues and folk music? What is the role of music in today’s society?

Blues and other types of folk music are social in nature. As we as a species become less and less connected due to the use of non-human intermediary devices, we certainly need that which can keep us connected in more wholesome ways... a good meal with friends, a chit chat, a quilting bee, sports, dance… music. But this is just my opinion. Like the finches of the Galapagos Islands, the human species is evolving far more rapidly than previously imagined; not consistently by geographic area, but changing everywhere nonetheless. By example… I was at a party a few years back. Someone put on a recording of “Dancing In the Streets" by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas. The teenage girls at the party continued to talk and giggle in the corner of the room; oblivious with no response to the music. At the same time, every woman over 60 was moving her body… grinding like she were a teenager. Different sub-species. So, it’s difficult to know for whom we are preserving our music… but perhaps it’s best to preserve it anyway.

”Birdwatching. I don't know if it has any influence on my music other than to keep me healthy and alert enough to keep musically sharp. A life well-lived… give everyday your best shot and go where the love is.” (Photo: Geoff Muldaur with the Jim Kweskin Jug Band in the early 1960s)

Are there any specific memories from the famous Newport Folk (and Jazz) Festival of 1960s that you would like to tell us about?!

Many of course… Newport Folk… Bonnie Raitt’s first manager, Dick Waterman, had us all in stitches one day telling Skip James stories with perfect Skip, high voice, impressions; Skip, the self-absorbed little peacock asking Waterman to draw him him a bath, then adding, “Mr. Waterman, Mr. James would like his bath water tepid.” Or times when Skip would go on stage without his guitar, sit down as if ready to start with his arms in position as if he were holding a guitar and expecting Waterman to come up and place the guitar in his arms… which Waterman did. Or the time Skip was sitting with a few of the blues legends… Sleepy John Estes, Son House and Big Joe Williams. Big Joe was going on and on about his tune “Baby, Please Don’t Go”… boasting how it was the best blues tune ever, going on about how many people had recorded it… on and on, boring the group. Finally, Skip interrupted in a soft tone, “Mr. Williams? (pause) Mr. Joe Williams? (pause) Mr. “Baby Please Don't Go” Joe Williams? (pause) Fuck you!!"

Someone told me that Willie Dixon could perform an incredible feat of strength, so I went up to him at lunch one day during the festival and asked Willie if he could do what I was told he could do. I handed him a quarter. Willie, with a chicken drum in one hand and the quarter in the other managed to place the quarter in between if thumb and third finger and roll the quarter into a tube. True.

One year, I skipped a late-night blues bash to go hear Jean Ritchie give a solo performance in a little room. Lo and behold so had Janis Joplin. I had met her before on her “home turf” in SF, but I had no idea Janis was into Jean Richie. Janis was deep. I miss her.

The ’65 workshop with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band was a seminal moment in American music; an integrated Chicago Blues band with a tough Irish guy wailing away on the harmonica. No one - at least in the Northeast, and I suspect elsewhere in the world - had seen or heard anything like it. Paul’s Better Days Band - of which I was a fortunate founding member - was a master class… and he was the professor.

At Newport Folk it was impossible to catch everything you wanted to experience. Let’s see... will it be the Stanley Brothers at their workshop or, simultaneously, the Dixie Hummingbirds at another. Or perhaps Mississippi John Hurt vs. Eck Robertson.  Wonderfully frustrating.

“I’ve always created arrangements and approaches to music, including my singing, in an instinctual way. I have little structural or conceptual concern. Each situation is an open book.” (Photo: Geoff Muldaur with Paul Butterfield’s Better Days, c.1973)

Newport Jazz: I sat next to Roland Kirk during lunch at the Newport Jazz Festival. It wouldn’t be memorable were it not for the fact that Kirk had horns draped around his neck as he ate… tenor, alto, manzello and stritch. Barney Kessel was sitting across from me. A gentleman. Those were the days. BTW, while walking behind the main stage one afternoon I could hear the Ellington Orchestra performing, and I could hear trumpeter, Cat Anderson, soloing… squeezing his ultra-high notes through the clouds. I could also hear Dizzy in a nearby dressing room riffing around him with ease.

Many stories, not enough time. One-on-one conversations with Skip James, Ira Tucker, Claude Jeter, an inmate from a southern prison brought up with a gang to sing work songs… and on and on.

What are you doing to keep your music relevant today, to develop it and present it to the new generation?

I have no desire to present my music to "the new generation.” This is a generality, but on the whole I am not interested.  If we were in a Golden Age, I might think differently (e.g. Vienna 1780-1830, USA Jazz 1915-1970). I write for musicians, for myself, for the Muse and for the wonderful folks on this planet that “get” what I do.

Life is more than just music, is there any other field that has influence on your life and music? What do you think is key to a life well lived?

Birdwatching. I don't know if it has any influence on my music other than to keep me healthy and alert enough to keep musically sharp. A life well-lived… give everyday your best shot and go where the love is.

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(Photo: Geoff Muldaur)