RSSGeoff Muldaur and Amos Garrett [extended]
- Pottery Pie [Reprise, 1970] B
- Sweet Potatoes [Reprise, 1972] B+
- Geoff Muldaur and Amos Garrett [Flying Fish, 1978] B
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Consumer Guide Reviews:
Geoff & Maria Muldaur: Pottery Pie [Reprise, 1970]
On side one, the nice tunes from the predictable variety of traditional and contemporary sources are too unfocused to be more than pleasant, but the flip is a modest postfolkie treat. "Me and My Chauffeur Blues" shows off Maria's sexiest moods--coy, melancholy, swoony, demanding, and at the end she and her chauffeur come together--while "Death Letter Blues" shows off Geoff's most haunted blues voice. In between he camps up "Brazil," she strolls through "Georgia on My Mind," and Jim Kweskin asks Mel Lyman for further instructions. B
Geoff & Maria Muldaur: Sweet Potatoes [Reprise, 1972]
I really like this album, especially when Geoff gets nasty on "I'm Rich" and the sophomoric cheap shot "Kneein' Me," both of which he wrote. But Chuck Berry's "Havana Moon" gives away his limitations. "Havana Moon" simply isn't a very good song--it's only "interesting," as a pop aberration that has nothing to do with the thrust of Berry's music. Muldaur's version works quite well only because it singles out how "interesting" (and obscure) the song is. And too often "interesting" is all he wants to be. B+
Geoff Muldaur and Amos Garrett [Flying Fish, 1978]
Because Garrett's amiable baritone and astringent guitar tend toward blues, this is more coherent Muldaur than either of his Warner solos. And I assume a limited budget curbed some of his sillier experimental fancies, which couldn't have hurt. But his fondness for genteel schlock--tunes by Chopin and Tchaikovsky, a rancid chestnut called "Beautiful Isle of Somewhere"--still grates. B