Geoff Muldaur – Folkpionier mit Hang zur Klassik

Einmal Endstation und zurück

 

Er trat mit den Doors auf, und Janis Joplin spielte bei ihm im Vorprogramm – jetzt legt Geoff Muldaur ein neues Album vor

 

cw. Anfang der 1980er Jahre war Endstation: Geoff Muldaur stieg aus dem Popgeschäft aus. Er zog sich auf die kleine Insel Martha’s Vineyard vor der amerikanischen Ostküste zurück, rührte keinen Alkohol mehr an und ging stattdessen fischen und jagen. „Wenn ich mit meiner damaligen Lebensweise weitergemacht hätte, wäre es schlimm ausgegangen,“ sagt der 78jährige heute. 1984 zog er nach Detroit, nahm einen Job in der Autoindustrie an und programmierte von nun an Software für die Stahlproduktion. 

 

Bei seinem Abgang war Muldaur bereits 20 Jahre als Musikprofi im Geschäft. 1962 hatte er als 19jähriger mit seinem Kumpel Jim Kweskin in Boston die Kweskin Jug Band gegründet. Ein kometenhafter Aufstieg folgte: Die Gruppe trat mit Jim Morrison und den Doors auf, während bei einem anderen Konzert Janis Joplin im Vorprogramm spielte. Bei Festivals lernte die Band etliche Bluesveteranen kennen, von denen sie Lieder übernahm. „Die alten, schwarzen Bluessänger gingen bei mir ein und aus, wenn sie zu Auftritten in Boston waren,“ erinnert sich Muldaur. „Der Sänger Son House saß in meiner Küche und erläuterte, wie man illegalen Schnaps brennt.“

Geoff Muldaur (dritter von links) mit der Kweskin Jug Band

1969 geriet die Kweskin Jug Band in eine Schaffenskrise und löste sich auf. Ihr Manager Albert Grossman, der auch Bob Dylan vertrat und einer der mächtigsten Männer im Popgeschäft war, besorgte Muldaur ein Haus in der Ortschaft Woodstock, zwei Autostunden von New York entfernt, wo viele der damaligen Popstars lebten. Bob Dylan und The Band waren nur die bekanntesten von ihnen, auch Van Morrison und Jimi Hendrix wohnten zeitweise dort. „Bei Parties waren sie alle da und es ging ziemlich ausgelassen zu,“ schmunzelt Muldaur. 

 

Besonders gut verstand er sich mit dem Harmonikastar Paul Butterfield, und bald hoben die beiden die Bluesband Better Days aus der Taufe. „Wir reisten im Flugzeug zu Auftritten. Im Spiel waren jede Menge Alkohol und Drogen – der ganze Rockstar-Wahnsinn,“ so Muldaur. Die Exzesse ruinierten seine Ehe mit der Sängerin Maria Muldaur. Die Fahrt in den Untergang nahm Tempo auf, bis zu jenem Tag als er voll auf die Bremse trat und den Notausgang wählte.

 

Nach ein paar Jahren Einsiedlerdasein zog Muldaur nach Detroit, um als Software-Entwickler zu arbeiten: morgens mit Anzug und Krawatte ins Büro, abends nach Hause zur Familie. Musik spielte in seinem Alltag nur noch eine Nebenrolle. 

1996 schaute ein alter Kumpel vorbei. Gitarrist Bob Neuwirth war in Detroit, um mit der Rocksängerin Patti Smith Plattenaufnahmen zu machen. Außerdem hoffte er Muldaur für eine gemeinsame Tournee zu gewinnen. „Eigentlich wollte ich ablehnen, aber dann stimmte ich doch zu!“ Er hängte seinen hochbezahlten Job an den Nagel und stürzte sich erneut ins turbulente Musikerleben, wobei er mehr und mehr Spaß am Arrangieren fand. Er tauchte in die klassische Musik ein und vertiefte sich in Partituren von Beethoven, Schubert und Strawinsky. Eine Idee reifte: Warum nicht alte Blues-, Hillbilly- oder Jazznummern mit frischen Arrangements zu neuem Leben erwecken? Sein Huldigungs-Album für den Jazztrompeter Bix Beiderbecke von 2003 war ein erster Schritt in diese Richtung, nun legt Muldaur mit „His Last Letter“ nach. 

 

Das Doppelalbum enthält frühe Blues- und Hillbilly-Songs sowie ein paar alte Jazznummern, dazu eine Komposition von Muldaur selbst. Lange hat der Perfektionist an der Platte gefeilt, immer wieder neue Arrangements ausprobiert und wieder verworfen, bis er schließlich das Ganze mit einem Dutzend Spitzenmusikern in Amsterdam einspielte. Jeder Titel sieht sich derart gekonnt ins Szene gesetzt, dass sich die traditionellen Songs in delikate, kammermusikalische Miniaturen verwandeln, bei denen die Folkinstrumente Banjo, Gitarre, Mundharmonika mit den Orchesterinstrumenten Cello, Klarinette, Fagott und Horn in wunderbarer Weise zusammenklingen. Für ein solch exquisites Klanggemälde haben sich zehn Jahre Arbeit wohl gelohnt.

Geoff Muldaur: His Last Letter (Moon River Music)  

PETE SEEGER (1919 - 2014) remembered

Pete Seeger and family on their way to a gig in 1962 at Caffé Lena in Saragota Springs, New York (Foto: Joseph Deuel)

SAM CHARTERS, writer of numerous books about the blues

Yes, I knew Pete.  The world of folk music was very small in those days, and we all knew

each other. Also, both Pete and I were close

to Folkways, beginning in the mid-1950s when Moe Asch began releasing recordings I'd done.  Pete had a kind of innocence that most of us lose somewhere along the way, and he still believed that there was a path there for us to take, and he would help us find it.  I don't know of anyone who could lead people of such different attitudes and opinions along that path - at least for part of the way.  I never sat in an audience where people didn't sing when he set them into different singing groups and in two or three minutes we all were following that enthusiastic voice wherever he was leading us.  Pete and I also knew each other through the singers and the performers I was recording for - first Fokways, then Prestige Records and Vanguard Records.  If there was something exciting that I'd been involved with, I could expect a phone call from Pete.  What I learned from him was that just one person can make a difference, and you don't ever stop.

HAPPY TRAUM, musician with Bob Dylan in the 60s

"I don't know where I'd be today if it wasn't for Pete Seeger. I’m pretty sure I wouldn't have started singing folk songs or playing the guitar and banjo, and there certainly would not have been a lifetime of writing, performing, traveling, teaching and innumerable musical adventures. I might not have even met Jane, whom I originally encountered through folk music and who has shared my life for more than half a century. I owe it all to Pete.

Back in 1954, some high school friends took me to a concert at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. There, on stage, was this tall, skinny guy, standing alone in the spotlight before hundreds of young people, playing his long-neck banjo and singing for, and more importantly with, the crowd. He sang about all manner of things that I had never heard addressed before, and  his energy, enthusiasm and engagement with the audience captivated me, electrified me. I suddenly saw music in a whole new light. It could address social issues and relate to the joys and sorrows, the history and universality, of people everywhere. I watched Pete on stage and I thought, “I can do this too!” As I sang along on "Wimoweh," "Wasn't That a Time,"  "If I Had A Hammer," and "Irene Goodnight,” I felt the thrill of being part of something vast and important. I thought that music was going to change the world.

The next day, I went out and bought a guitar. I found out about Washington Square, went to "hoots" and folk concerts, learned hundreds of songs and sang them with the image of Pete peering over my shoulder. I tried to approximate his stance, his instrumental style, and his cheer-leader's approach to group singing. I sang only songs I thought Pete would approve of, and wore his records thin -- "Darlin' Cory," "The Goofing Off Suite," "Sodbuster Ballads," and anything I could get my hands on by the Weavers. I sang of solidarity with unions, even though I wasn't a worker; peasant chants - and I certainly wasn't a peasant (never even met one). I sang songs in bad Korean, unintelligible Swahili, broken Hebrew, and other languages that Pete sang in. I was one with the miners, the farm hands, the pioneers, the whalers (still politically correct in those days), the “people.”

From the perspective of today, this all seems naive and hopelessly out-dated, but

somewhere deep inside my soul the eternal optimism of Pete's songs still rings

true. I think of those old days as sunny and warm, filled with camaraderie,

friendship and idealism, with Pete's warm voice, gentle humor and thrilling banjo leading our way to a better world. And even if that new world doesn't materialize in our lifetime, I know that one sixteen-year-old's life was irrevocably changed by the revelation of a lone man on a wide stage, singing his songs and becoming one with his audience. Thanks Pete. I'll be forever grateful.

Jeffrey Lewis, Anti-Folk-Singer, New York City
                                                                                                                                     Foto: Manuel Wagner

"In the rock and roll world where rebellion is supposed to go together with dying young, Pete Seeger was an opposite example, showing how much real work it takes to be genuinely revolutionary (not just rebellious) AND keep it up for year after year, decade after decade.  If Pete Seeger had been in the "27 club" he would have died in the 1940s, can you imagine that?!?  Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain and all those other "rebellious" icons just look like tiny specks compared to a man like Pete who had to keep the spirit and body and dedication and focus and compassion strong for an additional two lifetimes, not just for himself but for the whole world to whom he gave more than most mere musicians can ever hope to.  For young artists of today it's only a small fraction of the picture if you only know the Pete Seeger of his 80s and 90s, or even if you only know the songs from the Weavers; for myself I had mostly given him credit as an omni-present activist more than as a performer until I eventually heard the Almanac Singers recordings and some of Pete's solo recordings to hear what I felt to be his more powerful and resonating material."

Tom Paley, New Lost City Ramblers, London

"I knew Pete Seeger back in the 1940s. I think he was a great man and a true idealist, as well as an important influence on those of us starting out in the world of traditional folk-music. He was always friendly and supportive. Even without him, I'm sure I would have continued in the folk-music field, but his influence was an important factor."

Rennie Sparks, The Handsome Family,  Albuquerque / New Mexico

"Mostly I'm amazed that there was a recent time in American history when Pete Seeger was seen as a dangerous bad guy."