Delta Blues History, Part 7
Mississippi Fred McDowell
by Don Erickson
Not to be confused with Mississippi John Hurt (see last month's article), Mississippi Fred McDowell's guitar playing was definitive Delta style - very percussive and influenced by Charlie Patton and Son House. What separates McDowell from most every other country blues artist is that he was not recorded until 1959, despite the fact that he had been playing since he was fourteen years old.
Mississippi Fred McDowell was born January 12, 1904 in Rossville, Tennessee, just north of the Mississippi border, east of Memphis. His parents died when he was a youngster, and Fred took up the life of a traveling musician. In the 1920's, he played for tips on the streets around Memphis, eventually settling in Como, Mississippi. In Como, he split his time between farming during the week and playing the usual fish frys, picnics and house parties on the weekends. He played with a slide hollowed out of a steer bone.
McDowell was living the street life when the folklorist Alan Lomax found him in Como in 1959. Lomax was the first to record McDowell and the results were released on the Atlantic label. Despite this, Fred continued to be a part-time musician playing for tips outside of Stuckey's candy store in Como.
This changed when Chris Strachwitz, the owner of the Arhoolie label, specializing in folk blues, came searching for McDowell in 1964.
McDowell's first albums for Arhoolie sent shock waves throughout the folk-blues community. Here was an artist who possessed a powerful repertoire of songs delivered with great emotional force, and who had slipped through the cracks all these years.
All of the sudden he was in great demand on the folk and festival circuit. He played the Newport Folk Festival in 1964 and was a member of the American Folk Blues Festival that traveled in Europe in 1965. He was also featured in at least three documentary films between 1968 and 1970.
One of his most popular tunes was "Shake "Em Down", a song written by fellow Delta blues man, Bukka White. McDowell became a huge influence to young blues artists Bonnie Raitt and Joe Louis Walker, who learned from him first-hand. Bonnie Raitt has covered some of Fred's tunes including a medley of "Write Me a Few of Your Lines/Kokomo Blues" on her album Takin' My Time from 1973.
The Rolling Stones delivered a faithful rendition of Fred's "You Got to Move" on their highly successful album from 1971, Sticky Fingers. Other songs recorded by McDowell include "Highway 61" and "Red Cross Store".
In 1969 he went into the studio for Capitol records armed with an electric guitar this time and backed by a young white rhythm section. Blues purists may have been disappointed by this decision, but it became, perhaps, his most popular album. The title of this album is I Do Not Play No Rock and Roll. Indeed.
Unfortunately, Fred was diagnosed with cancer in 1971, and passed away July 3, 1972, at the age of 68. He did manage to become the proud owner of a gas station on Highway 61, near Como, shortly before he died.
McDowell is still highly revered by current artists such as Jessie Mae Hemphill and R.L. Burnside. McDowell was inducted into the Blues Foundation's Hall of Fame in 1991.
Next month will be part 8 of Delta Blues history, featuring Bukka
White, cousin of B.B. King.
Reprinted with permission from the September 1997 issue of the Blues Crier
