Maria Muldaur

Maria Muldaur (born September 12, 1943) is an American folk-blues singer who was part of the American folk music revival in the early 1960s. She recorded the 1974 hit song "Midnight at the Oasis" and continues to record albums in the folk traditions.

Biography

Muldaur was born Maria Grazia Rosa Domenica D'Amato in Greenwich Village, New York City, where she attended Hunter College High School.

Muldaur began her career in the early 1960s as Maria D'Amato, performing with John Sebastian, David Grisman, and Stefan Grossman as a member of the Even Dozen Jug Band. She then joined Jim Kweskin & the Jug Band as a featured vocalist and occasional violinist. During this time, she was part of the Greenwich Village scene that included Bob Dylan, and some of her recollections of the period, particularly with respect to Dylan, appear in Martin Scorsese's 2005 documentary film No Direction Home.

She married fellow Jug Band member Geoff Muldaur, and after the Kweskin outfit broke up, the two of them produced two albums. She began her solo career when their marriage ended in 1972, but retained her married name.

Oasis (disambiguation)

Oasis is an isolated area of vegetation in a desert.

Oasis or The Oasis may also refer to:

Places

Geography and typography

Types of places

Computing and technology

Midnight at the Oasis

"Midnight at the Oasis" is a 1973 song written by David Nichtern. It was recorded by the singer Maria Muldaur for her self-titled album and is her best-known recording, peaking at #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #21 in the BBC UK Top 50 in the spring of 1974. Billboard ranked it as the No. 13 song for 1974. It was also nominated for both Record of the Year and Song of the Year at the 17th Annual Grammy Awards, held in 1975. In Canada, the song reached #2 in the RPM Magazine singles charts and #45 in the year-end chart.

Description

The song is a saucy, teasing offer of a desert love affair, in a fantasy setting that owes more to Rudolph Valentino sheik movies than to real Middle Eastern deserts. Allmusic reviewer Matthew Greenwald describes the song as "so sensual and evocative that it was probably one of the most replayed records of the era and also may be responsible for the most pregnancies from a record during the mid-'70s". Some of the lyrics are doubtlessly suggestive (e.g., "let's slip off to a sand dune … and kick up a little dust"; "you won't need no camel … when I take you for a ride"; "Cactus is our friend. He'll point out the way.") But the tone is playful throughout. "Midnight" features a 1970s-defining instrumental bridge, particularly memorable for the guitar work of Amos Garrett.

Midnight

Midnight is the transition time period from one day to the next: the moment when the date changes. In ancient Roman timekeeping, midnight was halfway between sunset and sunrise, varying according to the seasons.

Solar midnight is the time opposite of solar noon, when the sun is closest to nadir and the night is equidistant from dusk and dawn. Due to the advent of time zones, which make time identical across a range of meridians, and daylight saving time, it rarely coincides with midnight on a clock. Solar midnight is dependent on longitude and time of the year rather than on a time zone.

In the northern hemisphere, "midnight" had an ancient geographic association with "north" (as did "noon" with "south" – see noon). Modern Polish preserves this association with its word for "midnight" ("północ – literally "half-night"), which also means "north".

Start and end of day

Midnight marks the beginning and ending of each day in civil time throughout the world. It is the dividing point between one day and another. With 12-hour time notation, authorities recommend avoiding confusion between noon and midnight by using "midnight", "12 midnight", "12 mi", or "12:00 midnight."