Sometimes music can act as a time machine, delivering us back to some previous time or place. Maria Muldaur’s latest tribute to Victoria Spivey takes her listeners back to the “Roaring Twenties,” a time when Spivey’s saucy lyrics and jaunty rhythms played a big part of the counter-culture of the day.
Born in Houston in 1906, Spivey initially played piano and sang in the family band. By the time she was 13 she was playing in local movie houses, and as a teenager she got a taste of the high life as a performer in local bars and nightclubs. But unlike so many of her contemporaries, Spivey kept her head on straight, churning out crowd-pleasers like “Black Snake Blues” and “Dope Head Blues” for Okeh records in New York before switching to Victor in 1929. Many of her songs, playing to audiences seeking fun during an otherwise grim depression era, were sexually suggestive.
Spivey recorded with many of the jazz and blues greats of her day, Louis Armstrong and King Oliver, and she appeared in a number of depression era musicals. But Spivey, after seeing too much of her own and other artists’ earnings go to record company suits, became a successful businesswoman by launching her own label in 1961, and she had a career resurgence during the folk music revival of the 1960s.
Like Spivey, Muldaur is another artist with incredible staying power. Having earned enough off of one particular song in the 1970s to support to herself and family for many generations, Muldaur has let her passion for the blues dominate her discography. Her Spivey tribute, One Hour Mama, marks her 44th album. For the album, Muldaur reunited united with New Orleans band Tuba Skinny, whom she with on her 2021 release, Let’s Get Happy Together. With guest appearances by Elvin Bishop and Taj Mahal, the album captures that Roaring Twenties flavor. Among the highlights are “My Handy Man,” “TB Blues,” “No, Papa, No!,” and the title tune (which, as far as I can tell, was written by Ida Cox). It’s an enjoyable collection that will deliver many hours of fun, or, in the parlance of its time, it’s the cat’s pajamas!
About the author: Bill Wilcox is a roots music enthusiast recently relocated from the Washington, DC area to Philadelphia, PA and back again.