Maria Muldaur Meet Me At Midnite

Those fans who long for the bluesier, rootsier Bonnie Raitt before she became a crossover pop star now have an acceptable substitute in Maria Muldaur's Meet Me at Midnite. Muldaur recorded this album with Raitt's old band--guitarist Johnny Lee Schell, keyboardist Marty Grebb, bassist Hutch Hutchinson, and drummer Tony Braunagel--and with the sort of slyly feminist blues and honky-tonk which used to be Raitt's forte. The album's highlight is "Send the Man Back Home," Rory Block's slinky soul number about the dangers of fooling around with married men. Muldaur takes her time easing into the finger-snapping groove as if the truth of her advice would only become more obvious as time goes by, and she is backed up with harmony vocals from the great soul singers Ann Peebles and Tracy Nelson. Nelson herself wrote "Down So Low," a bluesy ballad which allows Muldaur to bend key syllables through several different notes. The New Orleans feel of Muldaur's '92 comeback album, Louisiana Love Call, is echoed in the second-line syncopation of Allen Toussaint's "Trouble with My Lover" and Jon Cleary's "Power in Music." For fans of that recording, or of the albums Muldaur and Raitt did for Warner Brothers in the mid-'70s, Meet Me at Midnite is a welcome reprise. --Geoffrey Himes