JD Barker

Over her fifty-plus year career, singer Maria Muldaur has released more than thirty recordings, scoring one bonafide hit with “Midnight At The Oasis” from her 1973 self-titled album. But she could have had a second hit from the same album. As she explains in her notes included in the packaging of her new release, disc jockeys across the country had another song on the album, “Don’t You Feel My Leg,” in more frequent rotation than “Oasis”. Discussions with her record company about making that song the follow-up broke down as the label considered the track too risque for the general public, a decision that certainly seems quaint today with standards that allow all kinds of potentially offensive language and sexual references on the air, even in the Oval Office at the White House. Muldaur includes an updated version of the song on her exceptional tribute to one of the tune’s writers, Louisa “Blue Lou” Barker.

Pleasure-seeking and pain-avoidance as a rave metaphor fits the music of Sam Barker. The Berghain resident and Leisure System co-founder has spent the last few years exploring the euphoric potential of altering key variables in dance music formulas.