What do you miss most nowadays from the music and the feeling of the past?
Well I grew up listening to early country music and I always liked when I got to be a teenager I started listening to, there was a folk musical vibe going on in New York City, I grew up in Greenwich, New York City there was a lot of music going on then, I also listened to a lot of jazz, I would lie about my age and sneak in to jazz clubs, but I became exposed to music, what I like to call American roots music, it was like early blues, early jazz, bluegrass something called old timey music, which was like the music of the people that lived in the mountains and so I fell in love with that music, early on and although I listen to contemporary music, I feel like that music has something more soulful about it, I always enjoy going back to that time of music.
You were born and grew up in Greenwich Village in New York. How important was Greenwich Village in your life and in your career?
Well, I just happened to be born and raised in a little neighborhood in New York City that was always the epicenter for artists, for the painters and sculptors and poets and writers and musicians as well it’s very bohemian to grow up, we’re not conformists there, you know? And a lot of free spirits, people from all over the world gravitated to go there, because that was a place you could express yourself freely. And so, I was so lucky to be exposed to that even as a little girl and in the late 50s there started to be, there was a park there, called Washington Square Park and there was a big round circle, like a fountain. And every Sunday musicians would come from the place and would just be jamming together in little groups it was like a little mini folk festival, some people playing some early delta blues, maybe some people were playing bluegrass music and other people were playing protest songs, you know, songs with a political subject that maybe were about issues of social justice, so I got exposed to all of it and I started learning to play old time fiddle and learning old songs like blues, bluegrass and all kinds of songs I was really lucky to be there, right on my doorstep.
What are the lines that connect the legacy of American roots music from jazz, blues, gospel, folk to beat generation to folk, blues revival and beyond?
There’s something that’s so elemental about it. Look at jazz and blues; This the kind of music that’s on this record, a lot of the kind of music that I’ve spent decades paying tribute to. Different early blues artists, they created this music almost a hundred years ago and without any promo, commercial promotion form above ground media, you know, like say for a pop star now had an album come out it’s gonna have articles about the songs and, promo on the social media and stuff like that, but this music, that we’re talking about, with no help from media has managed to peripherate generation after generation. Right now, there’s way more blues festivals all over the world, not just in the States, not just in Canada, but across Europe and the world. The same could be said for blue-grass and old-timey music, I can’t believe how many young kids, they found out about it, they have to kind of dig deep to even find it, but once they’re exposed, they’re immediately attracted to it, just like I was when I was a young girl in the 60s. Do you know why? Because it’s kind of like if you’re eating fast food your whole life, then someone invites you over and they set a fabulous home-cooked meal. You’ll just gobble it right up and you’ll never gonna look at McDonald's again. That’s the same on a musical level, that’s what’s going on. People of the younger generation are the most discouraged about the whole climate, environmental crisis, karma crisis the whole human mess that’s going on, that’s way worse now than it even was then and so to hear this pure music, it just naturally attracts them and that’s why, in the summer usually where there’s no Covid, I find it very hard to put a really good band together sometimes, because all the best players, they’re playing festivals in Europe and all over the place. That means that people from all over the world, even people that can’t understand a word of English, really wanna hear this music. I had played a blues festival in Czech Republic a few years ago, I’ve played in Bolivia, all over the place, because it’s a really different energy and people just naturally respond to it. Tuba Skinny’s music, you can’t sit there, you have to get up and dance. That’s something timeless, it’s not about some trendy little moment in a commercial. It just means the music is real, so people are always gonna respond to it.
From: https://blues.gr/profiles/blogs/q-a-with-gifted-singer-maria-muldaur-the-first-lady-of-roots-musi
