I have to do this every once in a while: I'd been playing so many new discs lately, listening to so many variations on current pop formula, that I was driven back into the musical archives. To heck with discs everybody else'll be reviewing - let's go back and revisit some long-unplayed faves! (Besides, I have nothing profound to say about Radiohead.) So I rolled my desk chair over to the CD shelves, scanned 'em and grabbed a selection I've unreasonably loved since I first bought it as a Reprise long-player back in 1968: Geoff and Maria Muldaur's Pottery Pie (Hannibal).

I came to this couple via the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, one of the few folk groups I would even deign to listen to in the late sixties. Both Geoff and Maria were vocalists for the Boston-based band, which took from the rollicking Memphis blues sound of such groups as the Memphis Shieks and tossed a love of corny Tin Pan Alley tunery into the brew. The group broke up after several releases for folk label Vanguard and its big-label long-player, Garden of Joy (hey, Rhino Handmade, why isn't this platter on your reissue list?), and the Muldaurs moved to upstate New York, where all the hip happenin' musicians were collecting. They recorded two albums before Geoff split the marriage to become a member of Paul Butterfield's Better Days, and Maria had a short-term hit solo career with Maria Muldaur and "Midnight at the Oasis."

Pottery Pie was their first solo disc, and it's a strange and wonderful collection of eclectic hippie folkiness. The cover shows husband and wife lying in bed, Geoff holding what appears to be a self-help book on his lap, Maria reading a copy of Awake with an alarmist headline on its front cover, "Is it later than you think?" (This Apocalyptic question shows up in her version of "Trials, Troubles, Tribulations," a country gospel number that lyrically riffs on Revelations.) Compared to her full-faced provocative poses on solo albums like Waitress in a Donut Shop, Miz M. seems pretty shy. Her sinuous vocals are anything but retiring, though.

Some folks have never fully cozied up to Maria's wavery singing, but after years of listening to reed-thin alt types, I personally find it convincing: plaintive and playful, not to mention pretty darn sexy. Geoff's voice sounds like something you'd hear on a forty-five from the thirties. It has elements of Tommy Johnson and other Mississippi moaners, but he can also assay a effective pop croon. Pie alternates vocals between Maria and her bluesy hubby, while Amos Garrett, a marvelously distinctive and underrated guitarman (who also can be heard on many of Geoff and Maria's individual albums - in a lot of ways his snaky style was perfectly matched to both Muldaurs), provides able support throughout.

The disc opens with Geoff's studly take on Erich Von Schmidt's advice-to-the-lovelorn song, "Catch It" (very odd sounding horn break on this track), but it really catches fire with Maria's come hither country pie remake of "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight." Geoff's charging version of "New Orleans Hopscop Blues," a Bessie Smith classic, makes optimal use of his quavery blues voice.