Maria Muldaur - Heart Of Mine: Love Songs Of Bob Dylan

"That big ol' moon is gonna shine like a spoon and we're gonna let it you won't regret it Yes, Bob Dylan wrote those words. He also wrote all the other songs on this CD including "On A Night Like This," "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight," "Make You Feel My Love" and the usual suspects. Plus lesser know suspects such as "Golden Loom" and "Magnolia." Muldaur says she told Dylan the latter was his masterpiece, rather than, say, "When I Paint My Masterpiece." "Old Friends, Bookends," to borrow a phrase from Paul Simon, Muldaur has knwn Dylan since both were pups like Homer. She's in Scorsese's excellent "No Direction Home" talking about Bob and singing his obscure ""Lord, Protect My Child." So how does "Heart Of Mine" fare compared to my favorite Dylan tribute recordings: Tim O'Brien's "Red On Blonde" and Jackie Greene's "Positively 12th & K" with Sal Valentino and Friends? Very well indeed. It's jazzy and has Muldaur's usual crack band. Check out musical director David Torkanowsky's Al Kooper redux keyboard work. Then there are guests like guitarist Amos Garrett (once of Paul Butterfield's Better Days and Ian & Sylvia's Great Speckled Bird) and the git fiddling of Richard Greene, spawn of the later Blues Project and Sea Train. And Muldaur, who studied the fiddle with the (Doc) Watson Family and sat at the feet of Reverend Gary Davis, Mississippi John Hurt, Son House, and Victoria Spivey, to learn her craft, is no recent winner or even a runner-up on American Idol. She gives a feminine twist to Dylan's masculine songs. After all, "Love in an instant is still, when you think of it, Love Forever," is how she puts it. [www.telarc.com]