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Music: Working girl
Maria Muldaur's latest gets Obama's vote

by Greg Cahill

"I've made many an album that turned out to be the soundtrack for love and lust and many a romantic affair," says blues diva Maria Muldaur of the planning that went into her recently released 32nd album. "Having sung about that for years, I asked myself what was uppermost in my heart and mind and the answer came back that it was the rather dismal and alarming state of the world. I decided to do an album of topical songs that addressed those issues. The idea came to me to record, not an album of protest songs, but a pro-peace album that would address issues in a positive way while putting forth a message that inspired people.

"I hoped it would be the soundtrack for the change we all need to work together on."

But let's set the record straight: The title of the album, Yes We Can! (Telarc), is not a nod to Barack Obama, yet don't tell that to the president-elect, who has heard it and surprised Muldaur with his own review.

Muldaur conceived of the project as a way to bolster the spirit of women facing a world gone wrong. At the time, she was an avid Hillary Clinton supporter. In fact, Muldaur selected the album's title, Yes We Can!—taken from the Pointer Sisters 1974 hit "Yes We Can Can"—before Obama adopted his familiar campaign slogan.

Muldaur enlisted such high-powered guests as Bonnie Raitt, Joan Baez, (the late) Odetta and Holly Near. She also organized the Women's Voices of Peace Choir, featuring such unlikely songbirds as Jane Fonda and Anne Lamott, all women committed to social justice issues.

After Clinton's campaign faltered, Muldaur sent a copy of the CD to Obama in the hope that his campaign might play the title track at its political rallies.

"I realized he had chosen that phrase for the same reason I had, because it's a positive message in the face of all the negative stuff that's going down: the financial meltdown, the war in Iraq, global warming, corrupt leaders," she explains. "You can either curl up in a fetal position and hide under the bed or muster the hope that if we all work together then we might effect a positive outcome. Yes we can.

"So I figured, what the heck, and I sent him the album."

That's where Obama's penchant for the personal touch comes in.

A week later, Muldaur was at her post office box, shuffling through a stack of junk mail, when she noticed a letter that was hand addressed.

"I thought, I'll open this one, at least it's not a bill," she recalls. "It was a hand-written letter from Barack Obama thanking me for the song and my support and adding that the song perfectly fit the spirit of the campaign and that he would have his people put it in rotation at his rallies. He added that he hoped to thank me personally before too long.

"That just blew my mind."

Muldaur believes the lyrical message of the album is as poignant today as when these songs were first recorded. Indeed, Yes We Can! plays like a soundtrack, not for love and lust, Muldaur says, but for rolling up your shirt sleeves so you can get about the daunting task of effecting the positive change that has been the theme of Obama's campaign.

"Everybody who worked on the album was very inspired by the concept of recording a collection of work songs," she adds. "You know, when you want to clean the house and you need some music that is just gonna kick your ass and you turn it up loud and you get to work. We wanted these songs to motivate people. Lord knows that even if you had Jesus and the 12 apostles in the Obama administration, they'd still need our help.

"And people tell me they're feeling encouraged by these songs, so I'm thrilled."

COMING SOON

Maria Muldaur performs Friday, Dec. 19, at 8:30pm, at Rancho Nicasio. $15. 415/662-2219.

Oz fest

It's beginning to look a lot like a vintage Christmas, thanks to the folks at Shout Factory. Gather 'round the hearth—or the 40-inch plasma TV, really—and savor this trio of timeless DVD chestnuts roasting in the cool blue glow of your Samsung wide-screen monitor. The Nelson Family Presents the Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet: Christmas with the Nelsons, gathers those TV pioneers Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, along with sons Ricky and David, who were billed during their 14-year run as America's best-loved family. The fact is, the Nelsons were America's squarest family, though Ricky enjoyed a career as a poor man's Elvis. These four episodes, which first screened between 1952 and 1957, are chock-full of the kind of wasn't-life-easier-back-then goofiness that belies the fact that the nation was living under the threat of Soviet nuclear annihilation. But this classic holiday footage is all about the nuclear family. And Ricky sings "Baby I'm Sorry." Meanwhile, the two volumes of the Johnny Cash Christmas Special, from 1978 and '79, capture the Man in Black and wife June Carter in a festive spirit. The slicker 1978 volume is billed as Hollywood style, in contrast to its country-oriented 1979 cousin. Kris Kristofferson, Rita Coolidge, Tom T. Hall, Anne Murray and comedians Steve Martin and, whoa, Andy Kaufman are among the special guests.—GC