In 1974, Maria Muldaur became a star with the sultry “Midnight at the Oasis,” but more than a decade before her signature song became a Top 10 hit, she had a front-row seat to another musician’s rise: Bob Dylan.
Muldaur, who turns 84 on Sept. 12, was born Maria D’Amato in New York City’s Greenwich Village in 1942. Growing up in a neighborhood that would become one of the epicenters of the American folk revival put her in the middle of an extraordinary musical community.
She began performing in the early 1960s, playing with John Sebastian, David Grisman and Stefan Grossman in the Even Dozen Jug Band before becoming a featured vocalist and occasional fiddle player with Jim Kweskin & the Jug Band…