Jenni Muldaur
from the music vault: Jenni Muldaur (originally released by Reprise 1992)
daughter of musicians Geoff and Maria Muldaur, Jenni released her one and only major label album back in 1992. On paper it probably looked like a sure thing: Jenni with her musical heritage, collaborating with big time producer Russ Titelman and recording her songs with major studio heavyweights like John Robinson, Paul Buchanan, Jeff Bova and David Sanborn. it was bound to be a classic, right? right???
So what happened?
listening to the CD now after all these years i have to say that there are a couple of things that come to mind. for one, the pristine pop production by Russ Titelman was pretty ill suited for Jenni’s voice. in my opinion, a more basic acoustic folk approach would have complimented her vocal style a bit more. another approach would have been the “Kate Bush” eclectic piano based style which they successfully did on the song Together Far Apart, a highlight on the album. unfortunately it was the only song performed in that style, the rest are in the bland studio pop vein. this leads me to the other weakness of the album, the material itself. Jenni wrote or co-wrote most of the songs here and her inexperience as a writer is apparent throughout with unremarkable, non-descript words and chord changes. the few exceptions in terms of songwriting are the aforementioned Together Far Apart (which was cowritten by Vince Welnick of the Tubes) and What Goes Around (cowritten by Lyle Workman and Larry Tagg of Bourgeois Tagg) which features a nice jazzy feel. but two songs plus filler doesn’t really add up to much so the album quickly got relegated to the cut out bin.
so why do i still have this album?
it is indeed mediocre at best but i have a soft spot for Jenni Muldaur. her voice isn’t really my cup of tea but she toured with Todd Rundgren on his Nearly Human Tour and appeared on his Second Wind album so that counts for something i guess.
Bonus cut: Secret
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