Most people know Maria Muldaur for Midnight at the Oasis, the 1973 hit that reached number six on the Billboard Hot 100. But this episode argues the pop moment was a brief detour in a lifelong mission to translate early American roots music for new generations. Born Maria Grazia Rosa Domenica D’Amato in 1942 and raised in Greenwich Village, she absorbed Hank Williams, Kitty Wells, Bob Wills, Muddy Waters, Alan Freed’s broadcasts, and doo-wop before diving into the 1960s folk revival and the jug band scene.

The discussion follows her from the Even Dozen Jug Band with John Sebastian and David Grisman to Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band, her duo albums with Geoff Muldaur, her 1974 album Waitress in a Donut Shop and its hit I’m a Woman, and the feminist-era criticism she pushed back against. It then traces her opening for the Grateful Dead, singing with the Jerry Garcia Band, her bluegrass bond with Peter Rowan, her 1980 conversion to Christianity and gospel records like Gospel Nights, and her later Grammy-nominated traditional blues work.

• How playing over jugs, washboards, and kazoos in a jug band built the rhythmic agility she later used in extended jam-band improvisation
• Why some 1970s critics called her song choices regressive, and how she defended old roots songs as universal human emotion rather than political manifesto
• Her pivots through gospel, vintage jazz on 1983’s Sweet and Slow, and the 2005 traditional blues album Sweet Lovin’ Ol’ Soul that earned Grammy and Blues Music Award nominations
• The 2003 Carnegie Hall tribute to Peggy Lee, a 2018 Central Park reunion with John Sebastian, and the 2019 Americana Music Honors Trailblazer Award
• Her 2021 album Let’s Get Happy Together with a traditional New Orleans jazz group and a planned Victoria Spivey tribute album