The third in an awesome trilogy of albums in tribute to the towering female blues singers of yore, Maria Muldaur's Naughty, Bawdy & Blue reinvigorates timeless tunes originally etched into immortality by the likes of Bessie Smith, Sippie Wallace, Victoria Spivey, Ethel Waters, Ma Rainey, Alberta Hunter, and others. In a bit of a different tack than she employed on Richland Woman Blues (2001) and Sweet Lovin' Ol' Soul (2005), Muldaur enlists the estimable James Dapogny-led Chicago Jazz Band to add a little Dixieland flair and some small-band jazz flourishes to the proceedings. The result is a trip back in time to the smoke-filled speakeasies of the '20s and '30s. Against a sonic backdrop rich in trombone, trumpet, sax, clarinet, tuba, banjo, guitar, piano, bass, and drums, the husky-voiced red-hot mama wails Sippie's "Separation Blues" (joined by Bonnie Raitt), moans a remorse-filled "Empty Bed Blues" as if channeling Bessie, coos her way naughtily through the lubricious, double-entendre classic "Handy Man," and swaggers seductively through a mess of lascivious suggestiveness in Spivey's steady-rolling "One-Hour Mama." No longer the waif-voiced temptress of "Midnight at the Oasis," Muldaur now belts out the blues with the gravitas that comes from having lived for a while. Great songs, great fun, and indisputably great interpretive singing.
