Dylan's influence remains strong

One day in 1962, when they were both young Greenwich Village folkies, Bob Dylan spotted Maria Muldaur in a cafe where she was rehearsing.

"I had a duo then, and we did Carter Family tunes," Muldaur explains. "Dylan came knocking and said, 'Hey, do you want to hear a song I just wrote?' Then he played 'Only a Pawn In Their Game.' "

That breathtaking story-song, inspired by the assassination of black civil-rights leader Medgar Evers and later sung by Dylan at the historic March on Washington, impressed Muldaur mightily.

"Instead of being full of polemics, like most protest music of that time, it had such a cosmic overview of compassion," she recalls. "It gave me a major epiphany that day, about how I looked at the world."

Muldaur remained an ardent fan of Dylan's topical tunes, but also his romantic ones. And she interprets a dozen of the latter on "Heart of Mine: Love Songs of Bob Dylan," a pungent, poignant new Telarc disc that is getting high marks from critics.

On Thursday at Jazzbones in Tacoma and Friday and Saturday at Seattle's Highway 99 Blues Club, Muldaur will dip into material from "Heart of Mine," which boasts familiar Dylan odes ("Buckets of Rain," "To Be Alone With You") and obscure gems ("Golden Loom," "Wedding Song").

Like Dylan, Muldaur has steadily performed and recorded since those heady days in Greenwich Village (where, by the way, she was raised).

The petite, Bay Area-based performer, with the still-sultry voice and trademark mane of raven black hair, has more than 30 other albums out. And she's settled into what she describes as "a New Orleans-flavored, blues, R&B and swamp funk" groove.

Muldaur is no stranger to this region. She's taught and performed at Centrum Blues Festival, Tacoma's Wintergrass Festival and was the house diva at Seattle's Teatro ZinZanni, for a spell.

Wherever she goes, Muldaur knows her fans want to hear some signature tunes: her seductive "Don't You Feel My Leg" and cover of the Peggy Lee hit, "I'm a Woman," from her fiddle-toting days with Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band. (Her ex-husband, Geoff Muldaur, was also in the group.)

Also requested is Muldaur's torchy 1974 Top-40 hit, "Midnight at the Oasis."

If people also want to associate her with Dylan ballads, too, no problem. "Though he's best known as a writer of social protest songs, as a writer of modern love songs, I think he's without peer," Muldaur declares.

After unsuccessfully shopping the "Heart of Mine" concept to several record labels, Muldaur was jazzed when Telarc signed off on it — thanks, she believes, to her appearance in "No Direction Home," Martin Scorsese's acclaimed PBS documentary on Dylan.

"Dylan's people were very enthused about me doing the record, and sent me everything he ever wrote," Muldaur notes. "I was just allowed to run barefoot through his entire song collection."

Her swampy singing style, and her New Orleans backup musicians, meshed organically with the Dylan tunes she finally chose.

One rarity on the disc is "Golden Loom," a "sexy and mysterious" tune Muldaur found on a Dylan bootleg recording. Another, "Moonlight," is from Dylan's "Love and Theft" record, and she chose it for "its hip, groovy, jazzy chord changes. When I first heard it, it put me in a swoon."

Then there is "Make You Feel My Love," a touching ballad Muldaur calls "the deepest expression of unconditional love I've ever heard, anywhere."

Has Dylan rendered a verdict on the disc? Not yet.

"We've stayed in touch in a very loose, random way," Muldaur says. "I usually run into him at a show once a year or so."

Their last encounter, however, was significant for her.

"He said I really should play the fiddle more, that people gotta hear the 'rustic' way I play." Muldaur took the man's advice. And when you hear a fiddle on her "Heart of Mine" rendition of "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere," that's Maria.

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com