Geoff Muldaur - The Greys, Brighton, Monday 31^st 1999

Descriptive preamble

Bank holiday Monday in Brighton, south of London by sixty miles, a seaside town beautifully captured by Graham Greene's Brighton Rock. All cockles, gangsters and Piers. Tourist and bohemian alike make for the Lanes. A ramshackle maze of old book, record and trinket shops dotted with marvellous proper wooden pubs, cafes and spaghetti houses. The word 'corporate' don't live around here.

Behind the Lanes lies Brighton Dome where persian carpets mix with the town's royal history. All erotica and Victoriana. Close by is Brighton Railway Station, its oppulence declining when trains gave up their steam to diesel and electric. To the east of the station an area of tightly packed terrace houses which occupy the high ground of an area called Southover. The hills are steep. Parking is is precarious. The tiny pubs are all full of character and characters.

One such pub is the Greys which is hung on the corner of the Southover road. When Andrew and Jane Perry took me there I could smell cracking gig just by the cut of the place. One such character is Irishman Tony,the pubs doorman. Tony has a stubble beard, a mischevious look about him and white scarf hung around his neck which makes him look like Donald Sutherland in Kelly's Heroes. Tony accosts all and sundry, known or unknown for tickets.

This is a spit of a pub, just one small bar and not much bigger than London's 12 Bar. Capacity around 75 or 80. Owner Mike Lance is clearly a music fan and a dab hand at promoting to boot. Tonight he's sold out the place for Geoff Muldaur who is on his first visit to England. In August Gene Parsons and Meridian Green play two nights here. Clearly a man of taste. For some reason he runs a Belgian eating house upstairs too.

Geoff Muldaur

My knowledge of Geoff Muldaur is scant, save only that I knew he was in the Jim Kweskin Jug Band and hung around with Paul Butterfield but I wouldn't have had a clue if he was Maria Muldaur's brother or husband, ex husband in fact. My ignorance would be soon rectified. As a taster of what was to come a lady singer known by Andrew came up to discuss Viola Lee Blues which she said first heard on an early Geoff Muldaur album. My appetite was well and truly wet by that snippet.

Dead on nine the chatter in the pub disappeared like ether when Mike Lance stepped up to speak softly into the microphone. The stage is nothing more than a raised platform big enough for maybe four at a push, the ceiling looks low. Mike Lance says: 'From Germany straight into a back street shoe box will you welcome Geoff Muldaur'.

Goeff Muldaur walks down the small staircase carrying his guitar. He wears a plain workshirt, carries a guitar to make Andrew Perry drewl and a kiss curl in his blonde hair that gives him the air of a figure from Kerouac's On The Road.

'I had no idea that the place would be so large . . .' Instant rapport with his audience. 'This is a poem,' he begins while working up a backing of subtle chords. 'And old lady died of a common cold . . .' it starts. As Geoff Muldaur ends the poem/song he initially asks his audience if they know what it was and no one has a clue. 'A poem by Tennessee Williams. Together we are a singer songwriter,' he answers.

'How is the sound?' the performer asks. 'Louder' shouts the audience. He grins: 'If it gets too loud you will all feel like you can talk . . .' All night the chat between songs will be Geoff Muldaurs and his alone joined by remarks from the audience. And when he sings no one says a word, even the glasses are silent. The second song starts 'My baby moaning this morning about half past nine, tears came rolling, tears came rolling down.' The guitar is unhurried, the burr of his voice is gentle but crystal clear like the sound that a way off freight train whistle makes on a black Illinois night And his blues are delicious.

'Your so quiet,' Geoff Muldaur notes. 'We're not talking,' calls Andrew Perry. 'Wait a minute how did you communicate that to me?' he rejoins. Ha this was already shaping up to be a cracking little gig.

Geoff Muldaur explains that he was in the Jim Kweskin Jug Band and the temperature raises for a couple of 'jug band things' The first of which starts: 'Listen here people I'm about to sing this song, going to St. Louis, won't be long' and it had marvellous verse 'If you want to be a girl of mine, bring it with you when your come . . .' Mike Lance controls the lighting perfectly all night as Geoff Muldaur hits the final refrain he dims the room and the song closes on a tumult of applause with Geoff Muldaur holding his first two fingers in the air and laughing: 'Lights, whooooooa, showbiz . . .'

Comfortable with his audience Geoff Muldaur begins a couple of stories about wash tub bass player Fritz Richmond. Muldaur tells a story about Richmond donating his wash tub to the Smithsonian Institute. The washtub has the 'Norwesco Steel Company emblazoned on it. The company suitably impressed with the free advertising offer to make Fritz Richmond wash tub basses for life. Geoff Muldaur guards his eyes and says 'He's taken to having stainless steel tubs built now'.

The whole pub are laughing hard and he continues to tell of a public service broadcast, a national radio show featuring Friz Richmond with a sting quartet playing on the jug. As Muldaur was telling it Fritz manages to keep up on a piece with a typically unpronounceable name. 'Then they gave him the music from Flight of the Bumble bee to play expecting him to pass out. And he played it note perfect.' And to top that we get another superb jug band song.

'Ok I'm going to play a jazz tune. When we wrote it, we started by getting all the chords wrong than we expanded on it. I showed it to Benny Carter, you know who Benny Carter is? (subtle and very fine jazz orchestra leader) and he said: "Geoffrey you've gone modal with the thing.' Then Goeff Muldaur proceed to play the deftest version of Gee Baby Ain't I Good to You that I've heard in a long time. Right down to the typical extended big band introduction before the vocals. His voice is gentle and soft but it carries, how it carries and he can really sing, every nuance, rise and fall, like one of those marvellous soft and easy trumpet players, almost effortless.

'I enjoy doing this,' Geoff Muldaur continues. 'I didn't do this for many years, I was hanging out with the suits (he shudders and goes 'whooooooaaaaaa'). The next song he says is by Barbecue Bob aka Robert Hicks from the Georgia area. And its Motherless Child. So great to hear him work the guitar through this listening and pushing the notes, one boot tapping percussion, like he would do all night through the songs.

'I left home when I was young, real young and I got on a train and went down to New Orleans.' Just then Mike Lance turns on the pub fan and has to apologise for the sudden noise. Razor sharp Geoff Muldaur calls, He ain't no fan of mine . . .' Then back to another superb story about New Orleans in 1961 all the kind of stuff that Scotsman Ken Colyer jumped ship to catch in the early 60s too. The traditional jazz of George Lewis 'and they had some great modern jazz too, rhythm and blues and they had a little good food down there too. Funerals were it, I was on the funerals circuit, brass bands going out to the fields, the tunes they played at those funerals.

And then Geoff Muldaur put the taste of the French Quarter and the soul food right in my mouth with the most subtle and gentle of New Orleans rags where his fingers over the strings just hooked my heart. I think this was the song that had this sweet run which he ended with the most delicate touch on a note with his fourth finger. That put the neck hairs up. The big guy by the side of me was checking his tape recorder and writing down chord changes furiously on that one. Hmm that's why bohemians wear fedora hats is it? The song had a line or a call in it that went 'Soon this life will be over' and like so many of the endings that Muldaur did tonight this was so sweet, a little dancing guitar coda as succulent as the food of New Orleans itself.

'I didn't play out much in public for 16 or 17 years, well occasionally and when I came back everyone was selling CDs from the stage. I thought now that's crass, so I gave it some thought, I'm in to this, I like this (big grin) You know before the blues there were moans and this tune is by Vera Hall, Alan Lomax recorded her accapella. I used to hum her tunes all the time in my car.' Another cracking song with my kind of line in it: 'Well I'm going to Texas because I swear I belong.'

Even the thirty minute beer break was entertaining as the crowd began to chatter again. A delivery man dropped by to hand a guy a big deep pan pizza out in the road which he was eating off the top of Andrew's car and pints were being pulled in rapid succession. And while I was out in the road talkng to Tony the doorman I heard the cry go up, 'Last CD, if you want one of Geoff Muldaur's you will have to be quick.' And somebody nabbed that one too.

The second set carried on where the first one left off. I'd been listening, periodically, to Walter Davis sing scratchy blues songs on old RCA records since the early 70s so it was a delight to actually hear a version live. Not sure which song it was but Geoff Muldaur gave it all the subtle nuances of the gentle piano player from St. Louis himself. 'Well your pictures faded that hangs on your wall . . .' And has he sang I could hear cars struggling up the hill outside and a siren wailing off in the night outside. Atmospheric or what. Geoff Muldaur wound it up again to a pub full of applause to whom he gently added: 'Just a little something to cheer you up.'

'Did you hear about that rocket they put up into space,' the performer continued. 'They sent music up there, digitised the Brandenburg Concerto, put Johnny B Goode into outer space along with music from Peru, they also put Dark was the Night, cold was the ground by Blind Willie Johnson, restored my faith in my government for about a day. Blind Willie was one soulful bluesman and when Muldaur sang the song the gospel influences ran deep like river through it. 'Trouble will soon be over, sorrow will have to end. This song had a marvellous middle guitar solo where he just coaxed the notes out of the guitar like a magician pulling a rabbit out of his hat. The end just a few 'hmmmmm hmmmmmm hmmmmm's' was stunning.

'What night is it? Monday? Monday night is experiment night. Jeez this man was a walking blues library a Sleepy John Estes song, Drop Down Mama I think it is called, had a killer line in it: 'Hand full of gimme gimme, mouth full of mushed up lies and he put another masterful ending to it which after the applause died down he'd admit started to sound like Kurt Weill or Seals and Crofts (to which some wag shouts 'Sounds like a hardware store).

'This is a song I recorded with my daughter, also I did it with Richard Thompson, although I haven't played here I have come over to record.' This was an introduction to Bobby Charles who Geoff Muldaur explained wrote 'See you later Alligator, Walking to New Orleans and I don't have to love you but I do.' Muldaur would note that he travelled with Bobby Charles during the Paul Butterfield tours. He marvelled at his songwriting ability: 'He'd just see something and go 'You know Jefferson da da da deee da da . . . and I'd think why didn't I think of that? He was on the run from the law, left Tennessee for Woodstock where we were exchanging wives and all that, he figured if he hooked up with showbiz with all the lawyers he wouldn't go to jail . . . (pause) and that was exactly what happened (laughter).

The Bobby Charles song was called I think Tennesse Blue 'Some place I could lose those Tennessee blues . . .' It was a country tinged waltz not unlike the Tennessee Waltz. Once again in this hushed room Muldaur was able to sing gently and gracefully complimenting his relaxed but effective guitar playing. And once again the ending was one just to curl your toes right up. And then someone decides to ask 'So where is Tennessee?' which wisely ignored.

The next song was one from the New Orleans merchant of gumbo soul, Allen Toussaint. 'It's a little mushy,' confessed Geoff Muldaur before the performer alluded to the shenagins around his last album for Warner Brothers which must have been a time ago because he said: 'They insisted on a jump suit and I said well but you gotta buy me the score to ????? and the title of the album has got to be, Please Release Me. It was a song that he said he and Bonnie Rait did together and it had a line it that went: 'There's a motion in the ocean like the motion in my mind.' And once again the ending was complimented by Mike Lance lowering dampening down the bulbs. 'Love those lights' Muldaur responded..

Two tunes followed from Geoff Muldaurs latest CD. 'People told me you ought to write more. This is a song about a journey I took on a train out of New Orleans when I used to get up at four in the afternoon.' This was a killer song for someone like me who loves the imagery of old blues, cookies and Kerouac. I wrote the words down as he sang it because it was so relaxed there was time at the end of every line to get it down:

'I went with my broom and headed out of Jackson Square
had to get to East Texas find the graveyard somewhere
Well highway 90 I fell off at Lafayette
I had one dime in my pocket, hungry and soaking wet
please mr policeman please put me in your jail
I'm a tired man I've got to get myself some rest
before I get back on the trail
because I got to find Blind Lemon see that his grave is kept clean

Well early next morning the boys were driving through town
Well they passed me some whiskey said fellah you ought to turn around
we went over to the blood bank, cookies and 2 dollars for pay
then we headed back to New Orleans we got to find Blind Lemon another day
got to see that his grave is kept clean . . .

(with lots of double refrains, repeated choruses etc.)

With time now after eleven, I was keeping one ear on the music and one eye on the clock as I was hitting the 11.32 to London straight off. Muldaur was still extremely relaxed and enjoying every minute like his audience were. He sang this beautiful 'Irish gospel tune' of his own which ran like a Biblical parable akin to the Prodigal Son, ' Please forgive me father because I want to come home.' The middle solo was an amazing coda when the notes seemed to fall right into place wherever his fingers fell.

Nearly ten past eleven and Geoff Muldaur ends the set with a typical Joe Williams upbeat rocking guitar tune 'Honey just don't let my husband catch us here . . .' As the audience roared their applause Geoff Muldaur was unplugging his guitar and making for the stairs and we had to make for the door. The ghosts of so many great blues influences like Sleepy John Estes, Blind Lemon Jefferson and Walter Davis had been conjured right up before our ears and I was sorry to leave because I expect the encore or encores were crackers too.

Geoff Muldaur was able to sing with a range and control that was masterly tonight, the place was so hushed you could catch every last nuance and turn of phrase. The guitar playing, well I've seen too many technically good players who parade their box of tricks, but Geoff Muldaur, thankfully ain't there to jump the songs through a series of hoops. He played what was needed, played with soul, feeling and sensitivity. As the man once said 'for the sake of the song'.

Mike Plumbley