VOA标准英语2011--Muldaur Gifts Fans with Bluesiana Album 'Steady Love'

（单词翻译）

Muldaur Gifts Fans with Bluesiana Album 'Steady Love'

In 1974, singer Maria Muldaur became an international pop sensation with her hit song “Midnight At The Oasis².” Since then, she’s recorded nearly 40 albums, weaving between blues¹, folk, jazz and gospel. Her latest effort Steady Love falls into a category she calls “bluesiana.”

Muldaur has an encyclopedic knowledge of contemporary music. Her specialty³ is New Orleans rhythm-and-blues, inspired by working with legendary⁴ piano man Dr. John.

“I became addicted⁵ to that just wonderful, rolling, syncopated New Orleans piano style that he and Professor Longhair have done so well," she explains. "And I’d come back off a tour with him and I just really missed that sound. So I made it a prerequisite⁶ that any piano player that played with me had to really bone up on that New Orleans piano sound. That’s about when I coined the phrase “bluesiana.” In the early-‘90s I went down there to record my first album there called Louisiana Love Call. It’s just a very appealing, infectious, soulful kind of music, and it’s just kind of where I live musically.”

Muldaur became an established folk and blues singer with the Jim Kweskin Jug⁷ Band. She released her debut⁸ album in 1973, and, the following year, got her first real taste of fame with “Midnight At The Oasis.”

“It did kind of take me by surprise but it was a very happy surprise," she admits. "All it meant to me was I was nominated for Grammys, the album went gold, eventually platinum⁹ and all that. And it wasn’t just a hit in this country, but it was a big hit worldwide. For some bizarre reason that goofy little song just captured people’s imaginations all over the world, but I went right on doing what I was doing. I thought, ‘Ok, goody, now I can turn even more people on to the music I love.”

While she still performs her signature song on tour, Muldaur is always prepared with new material. It’s obvious her appreciation¹⁰ of the blues hasn’t diminished with time.

“New Orleans grooves¹¹ and rhythms are full of lots of percolating¹² syncopation. It’s just very deep, lively, greasy¹³, swampy¹⁴ kind of rhythms going on," Maldaur says. "Chicago blues are mostly shuffles¹⁵, and Delta¹⁶ blues are usually acoustic¹⁷ sort of stuff that was the blues when the blues first emerged in the rural South before anyone plugged their guitars in.”

Steady Love was recorded in New Orleans and includes tunes¹⁸ by Louisiana natives Percy Mayfield and Bobby Charles, as well as Elvin Bishop¹⁹, Greg Brown and Eric Bibb. Rick Vito’s “I Am Not Alone” is one of a handful of gospel songs featured on the album.

Muldaur and her Red Hot Bluesiana Band wind up their current tour in San Francisco with a Christmas concert on December 7.