A LOT OF PEOPLE know Maria Muldaur, but not so ...

A lot of people know Maria Muldaur, but not so many know her ex, Geoff. I've liked Maria since her early days in the Even Dozen Jug Band (when she was still Maria D'Amato) and then in the Jim Kweskin Jug Band?well worth a column in their own right. With the Kweskins she slithered and sultered through "I'm a Woman" and teamed with Geoff to toss out a saucy, sexual call and response on "Chevrolet" or receive vicious ranking on "That's When I'll Come Back to You." Nobody else sounded like her until her daughters came along, and then you needed a careful ear to tell them apart.

But Geoff Muldaur is an almost mythic figure in music for me, as singer, guitarist, composer, and interpreter of strange, sideways songs from the 20s and 30s. Somehow I imagine his voice coming out of a sidewalk grate, and I don't mean that in any derogatory way. It floats up on its own draft, high, insinuating, dreamy much of the time ("Wild About My Lovin'"), though given to quick, aggressive runs up the stairs on Kweskin-era" "Wild About My Lovin'" that could strip the wallpaper from a whore's bedroom and leave the glue in place. Even more than Maria, he sounds like nobody else on earth.

They worked wonderfully together on stage in the Kweskin days?Maria with her long black braid and gorgeous face, Geoff intensely concentrated over his guitar yet somehow slightly doughy. But the couple really hit their stride together?aided by guitarist Amos Garrett?around 1970 on two superb albums, Pottery Pie and Sweet Potatoes. (That's Geoff singing "Brazil," from Pottery Pie, in the Terry Gilliam movie.) They pair for deliciously steamy vocals like "Me and My Chauffeur Blues," but some of their best work on the albums is solo.

Maria's "Trials, Troubles, Tribulations" brings the Book of Revelations to all-too-frightening life, and she gives a feminine twist to Dylan's "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight." Geoff wrenches all the world's agony from "Hard Time Killin' Floor" and "Death Letter Blues." Still, with Geoff there's always plenty of humor: "I'm Rich" ("Son of a bitch if I ain't rich") and "Kneein' Me" ("You're kneein' me in the balls/ You're ballin' me in the knees/ You're even kneein' me in the knees") are both human and laugh-out-loud funny.

Like the work of their contemporaries Koerner, Ray, and Glover (or Erik von Schmidt, whom I'll get to one of these days), these are albums I go back to whenever I need to be reminded that music must be truly visceral to mean anything.

Well, Maria and Geoff went their separate ways those many years ago, and I admit I never followed Maria's solo career. Geoff worked a bit with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, put out at least one dog of an album (Having a Wonderful Time), then pretty much slipped into oblivion. So I was delighted to hear that he was back in action again with Secret Handshake (1998) and Password (2000).

On Password, he's an old Joe, out there sitting on his porch, picking and strumming and letting that velour voice roll over you. The humor's quieter on both new material ("Kitchen Door Blues") and repeats from the early years ("Prairie Lullaby"). Better still, he's picked up a serene, ethereal sense of beauty ("Wait 'til I Put on My Robe", "Some of These Days").

His attempt at a ballad ("Mary of the Wild Moors") is a bit problematic, and "Beautiful Isle of Somewhere"?well, I don't know quite what to make of that. The title sounds Yeats-ish, but the song itself comes off like a left-field parody of "Casey at the Bat." Small beans. It's a lovely, lilting, friendly CD.