Heart of Mine by Maria Muldaur

In general, I am not a big promoter of Dylan cover records. Loved Post Cards of the Hanging, the Grateful Dead compilation, but the Jerry Garcia Plays the Songs of Bob Dylan is pretty hit or miss. Other tribute records, and there are plenty from specific genres, blues, bluegrass, reggae, just sound like Karaoke. Look, I love Dylan covers—and there are plenty of great ones—but an entire record of covers rarely works. Sorry, Judy Collins.

Heart of Mine by Maria Muldaur is one that does. Why did I buy it? I’m not a fan of her work, although I have nothing against what I’ve heard just wasn’t inspired to follow. What caught my attention was her parts on No Direction Home—who knew she had such a connection to the folk scene and made her bones in the same Greenwich Village milieu? The DVD of No Direction Homes has a special feature of deleted scenes and she belts out this fascinating version of Lord, Protect My Child.

She’s a gal who knows her Dylan!

Then, there was Wedding Song. I just had to hear another version of this. On Planet Waves, it sounds like a really a rough cut—which is a compliment. This solo acoustic performance—a rarity for this period of Bob—is Dylan basically hacking away his strum—none of that folkie finger picking. Listen closely, you can hear what sounds like the buttons on his cuffs slapping against the guitar. It’s a declaration of love for his wife, but in between Wedding Song & Sara—another declaration of his love for his wife, there was Blood on The Tracks. Must’ve been an interesting marriage.

Anyway, Muldaur’s version of Wedding Song is absolutely revelatory. The arrangement includes a stinging violin. This isn’t just a declaration of love, it’s an honest wail of devotion. As usual, the lyrics are amazing—what’s lost is lost, we can’t regain what went down to in the flood... then later, just being next to you is a natural thing for me. Well, it’s a great song of course. The vocalization is intense and unadorned. Relationships aren’t easy and requires forgiveness not easily granted but it’s better to grant it. For love.

Love. This is the reason this tribute record succeeds. The subtitle is ‘Maria Muldaur sings the love songs of Bob Dylan.” Other tribute records pick and choose almost randomly throughout Bob’s career, selected because they suit the artist. Or, it’s just some luminaries from a genre putting Bob songs into that genre. This record is thematic. Love. Muldaur journeys through all the decades of Dylan’s career and sings love songs, reminding us that for all of Dylan’s writing, the protest, social commentary, musings on identity, love songs have been a constant. She changes pronouns and sometimes lyrics so all the songs are transmitted via a female point of view. But not just any woman. Muldaur is honest about her persona, she’s an old broad. No pretension about being a sex kitten, but matronly demeanor is abandoned in the boudoir. Her voice, always sultry, is down right heated, mainly staying in the lower register but she is capable of exploring a multitude of shades in this register, twisting vowels, stretching them. You hear the lust, but you hear the woman too.

Throughout, the playing is superb— tasteful and playful and very textured, with accordions and violins, great guitar licks. For instance, in Moonlight there’s a quote of Aint Misbehaving during one of the breaks. This is an interesting Dylan song, to my ears, cause this is like some weird crooning ditty, sort of unlike Dylan, but then there’s just so many lyrics. There are just not that many lyrics in crooning ditties.

'The trailing moss and mystic glow/Purple blossoms soft as snow/My tears keep flowing to the sea/Doctor, lawyer, Indian chiefIt takes a thief to catch a thief/For whom does the bell toll for, love? It tolls for you and me'

The delivery is jazzy, articulate and yet sounds like the scat syllables by any of them great jazz singers. The lyrics are pretty bizarre, filled with layers and layers of what first impression seems silly images. But there’s a wistfulness too. Silly and wistful, both other facets of the heart.

On A Night Like This, gets a bossa nova baby treatment. Lilting. Funky. Swinging. What a fun song. There’s this organ break that seems to quote on Mister Moonlight.. There’s maracas and such. Latin tweaks. The song ends with the da ta ta of a TANGO. Really clever.

It’s interesting to hear a woman of any age sing: “lay your body next to mine and keep me company.” But, an “older” woman, singing this line, it’s just, well new in some fashion. It’s dripping with sexuality but it’s also mature, and very romantic. The record is filled with this sort of feeling, which is unique, innovative and refreshing as all heck.

Although soulful, these aren’t soulful heartbreak songs. She ignores the better known invectives like idiot wind or don’t think twice. She prefers the more declarative songs—two off Nashville Skyline—and the Blood on the Tracks numbers, You’re Going to Make Me Lonesome When Go and Buckets of Rain are the two respites from those other sorrowful tales. The title track is noteworthy, since it’s more cautionary. If you play with fire, you’ll get the bill.

The confident, sexual persona she creates is particularly dramatic, because this is an older woman—not necessarily the older woman—and when she tears into the line about heart of mine you know that he'll never be true, he'll only give to others the love that he's gotten from you—the fact that she is a full adult woman, well—past 25—adds dimension. In the original Dylan has a bit of macho tone, the only ramification if he doesn’t keep his heart still is that he will have to sing the same song for the next woman. Not here, because we know the options are narrowing. There may not be another chance at love but is she still capable of enduring the ramifications of not keeping her heart still.

All the songs come from a female point of view and she changes the lyrics to suit this perspective. For instance, Lay Lady Lay becomes Lay (baby) Lay—but then she sings he looks so fine—again, messing with the original lyric—Muldaur blows away the stereotype of the middle age harridan. Nor is she a passive woman. Everybody talks about the new honesty about sexuality by today’s feminists, and that’s fine. But shoot, youth is always sexy. Youth is sexy and sexual without effort. After a certain age, after youth fades, that sexiness is not just about looks, it’s about the person—maybe it always is, eventually. There is a lot to be said for sauciness, as well as experience. The spicy eroticism she infuses in these songs has compelling charm. Post menopausal sexuality. M.M. taps into this sensuality; come hither, play your cards right and daddy’s gonna get some tonight.

Sometimes her subtle touch transforms a song entirely. I never thought Golden Loom as a love song, and kudos to her for covering this—it was covered by Roger McGuinn pretty well in the 70s and didn’t get an official release until the first Bootleg Series record. For you neophytes, it’s Rolling Thunder era Bob. She changes the lyric, you turn your head cause you’re APPROACHING me, to EXPECTING me, A subtle difference on the surface, but a pretty big game changer—expecting. She sings “talking” about my Golden Loom. Golden loom—which I believe can be interpreted as a weaving device, echoing traditional female chores—then takes on another, obviously sexual innuendo.

It’s not just sexuality though, or rather, not simple sexuality. It’s mature sexuality, in that it is intertwined with romance, love and a bunch of other emotions, like trust. Every time I play the CD—it came out over a year ago and I am retrofitting an old Dylan news group post of mine to fit into my new fangled Blog—it fascinates.

The album ends with You Aint Goin Nowhere. Not really a love song, until she gets a hold of it, again modifying the lyrics to her agenda, such as, “tomorrow’s the day my MAN’s coming home. She also plays fiddle on this. Quite well, in fact. The rendition has a hoedown feel to it, kind of cajuny too. It’s as if this album ends with a party in the local tavern and the two old lovers in the couple are enjoying themselves, together again, home.

Happy. Sultry. Romantic. Honest. Maria Muldaur discovers something new about love in these songs Now, even Dylan’s versions contain this newness.