Geoff Muldaur, live
 by Cliff Garber  ·  6 October 2006

A hypnotist can only put one person into a trance, but Geoff Muldaur can mesmerize a whole room. Well. . . maybe that’s not the right metaphor for tonight’s concert. We were nodding to the music, not nodding off. Stomping our feet to the blues. I have to say, the sound Geoff got out of his Geoff Muldaur Signature Martin 00-18H was one of the sweetest and richest I’ve ever heard from a guitar. He played with delicacy and drive. And complete mastery. Unusual voice: a tenor that has a falsetto tone at times, wonderfully expressive. He sang lots of southern blues (that gorgeous Delta sound) and a couple of haunting poems by Tennessee Williams that he set to music. (I need to bring a notebook to concerts to take down the playlist!)

You know how sometimes you wish musicians would talk less and play more? Not Geoff Muldaur. His stories of gigs in Japan, spontaneous excursions out of New Orleans, and musical friends were as engrossing as his music. He is very, very droll. And judging from his arrangements of Bix Beiderbecke on his “Private Astronomy” album and his upcoming dates in Germany, he only scratched the surface of his musical talents tonight. But what a surface.