Article Contributed by Gratefulweb
Published on December 21, 2025
Seven-time GRAMMY nominee Maria Muldaur has earned a 2026 GRAMMY nomination for Best Traditional Blues Album with a deeply personal and historic project: an eclectic blues anthology honoring her mentor, Classic Blues Queen Victoria Spivey.
Best known to the wider public for her 1973 pop classic “Midnight at the Oasis,” Maria Muldaur’s six-decade career has been anything but singular. Instead, it has unfolded as a long, adventurous journey through the many branches of American roots music — blues, folk, jug band, jazz, gospel, and beyond. That lifelong commitment was formally recognized in September 2019, when the Americana Music Association presented Muldaur with its Lifetime Achievement Americana Trailblazer Award.
This latest GRAMMY-nominated release represents a true “bucket list” achievement for Muldaur — a labor of love dedicated to Victoria Spivey, the formidable blues singer, songwriter, and producer who played a pivotal role in encouraging Muldaur at the very beginning of her career. The album stands not only as a tribute, but as a continuation of a lineage that stretches back to the foundations of recorded blues.
Muldaur is joined on the project by an exceptional cast of collaborators, including multi-GRAMMY winner Taj Mahal, legendary blues guitarist Elvin Bishop, and the acclaimed New Orleans ensemble Tuba Skinny, whose presence adds a vibrant, historically rooted texture to the sessions.
Over the course of her career, Muldaur has recorded 43 solo albums, spanning nearly every corner of American roots music. In more recent years, she has leaned deeply into the blues, recording and producing at least a dozen blues-focused releases, earning multiple GRAMMY nominations and numerous blues industry honors along the way.
Reflecting on the personal meaning behind the project, Muldaur recalls discovering — decades later — a review written by Victoria Spivey following Muldaur’s first appearance at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival with the Jim Kweskin Jug Band.
“It was like she reached down from Blues Heaven to bestow her approval and encouragement once again,” Muldaur has said, describing the moment as profoundly affirming.
In Spivey’s own words, written at the time and now echoing across generations:
“Never judge a book from its cover… I studied her voice, her looks and her personality very well. I can tell you that I found nothing but success for this little lady.”
More than sixty years later, that early blessing feels fully realized. With this GRAMMY-nominated release, Maria Muldaur closes a powerful circle — honoring the woman who helped set her on the path, while reaffirming her own place as one of the most enduring and fearless voices in American roots music.
