Mississippi Fred McDowell

Fred McDowell
McDowell posing in 1972. Photo: Fred Seibert
Background information
Also known as	Mississippi Fred McDowell
Born	January 12, 1904(1904-01-12) Rossville, Tennessee, United States
Died	July 13, 1972(1972-07-13) (aged 68) Memphis, Tennessee, United States
Genres	Hill country blues
Occupations	Musician, songwriter
Instruments	Vocals, guitar
Years active	1926–1972
Labels	Arhoolie, Testament, Oblivion, Rounder Records, Fat Possum, Mississippi Records
Associated acts	R. L. Burnside, Jimmie Noone, Wilber Sweatman, Spirits of Rhythm, Bonnie Raitt, The Rolling Stones, Tom Pomposello,[1][2] Johnny Woods[3]

Fred McDowell (January 12, 1904 – July 3, 1972) known by his stage name; Mississippi Fred McDowell, was an American Hill country blues singer and guitar player.

Career

McDowell was born in Rossville, Tennessee, near Memphis. His parents, who were farmers, died when McDowell was a youth. He started playing guitar at the age of 14 and played at dances around Rossville. Wanting a change from plowing fields, he moved to Memphis in 1926 where he started to work in the Buck-Eye feed mill where they processed cotton into oil and other products.^[4] He also had a number of other jobs and played music for tips. Later in 1928 he moved south into Mississippi to pick cotton.^[4] He settled in Como, Mississippi, about 40 miles south of Memphis, in 1940 or 1941, and worked steadily as a farmer, continuing to perform music at dances and picnics. Initially he played slide guitar using a pocket knife and then a slide made from a beef rib bone, later switching to a glass slide for its clearer sound. He played with the slide on his ring finger.^[5]

While commonly lumped together with Delta Blues singers, McDowell actually may be considered the first of the bluesmen from the 'North Mississippi' region - parallel to, but somewhat east of the Delta region - to achieve widespread recognition for his work. A version of the state's signature musical form somewhat closer in structure to its African roots (often eschewing the chord change for the hypnotic effect of the droning, single chord vamp), the north hill country blues style (or at least its aesthetic) may be heard to have been carried on in the music of such figures as Junior Kimbrough and R. L. Burnside, while serving as the original impetus behind creation of the Fat Possum record label out of Oxford, Mississippi.^[6]

The 1950s brought a rising interest in blues music and folk music in the United States and McDowell was brought to wider public attention, beginning when he was discovered and recorded in 1959 by Alan Lomax and Shirley Collins.^[7] McDowell's records were popular, and he performed often at festivals and clubs.^[8] McDowell continued to perform blues in the North Mississippi blues style much as he had for decades, but he sometimes performed on electric guitar rather than acoustic guitar. While he famously declared "I do not play no rock and roll," McDowell was not averse to associating with many younger rock musicians: He coached Bonnie Raitt on slide guitar technique,^[8] and was reportedly flattered by The Rolling Stones' rather straightforward, authentic version of his "You Gotta Move" on their 1971 Sticky Fingers album^{[citation needed]}.

McDowell's 1969 album I Do Not Play No Rock 'N' Roll was his first featuring electric guitar. It features parts of an interview in which he discusses the origins of the blues and the nature of love. (This interview was sampled and mixed into a song, also titled "I Do Not Play No Rock 'N' Roll" by Dangerman in 1999.) McDowell's final album,^[9] Live in New York (Oblivion Records), was a concert performance from November 1971 at the Village Gaslight (aka The Gaslight Cafe), Greenwich Village, New York.

McDowell died of cancer in 1972, aged 68, and was buried at Hammond Hill Baptist Church, between Como and Senatobia, Mississippi. On August 6, 1993 a memorial was placed on his grave site by the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund. The ceremony was presided over by Dick Waterman, and the memorial with McDowell's portrait upon it was paid for by Bonnie Raitt. The memorial stone was a replacement for an inaccurate and damaged marker (McDowell's name was misspelled) and the original stone was subsequently donated by McDowell's family to the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, Mississippi.

Bibliography

• William Ferris; - Give My Poor Heart Ease: Voices of the Mississippi Blues - The University of North Carolina Press; (2009) ISBN 0807833258 ISBN 978-0807833254 (with CD and DVD)
• William Ferris; Glenn Hinson The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Volume 14: Folklife The University of North Carolina Press (2009) ISBN 0807833460 ISBN 978-0807833469
• William Ferris; Blues From The Delta Da Capo Press; Revised edition (1988) ISBN 0306803275 ISBN 978-0306803277
• Ted Gioia; Delta Blues: The Life and Times of the Mississippi Masters Who Revolutionized American Music - W. W. Norton & Company (2009) ISBN 0393337502 ISBN 978-0393337501
• Sheldon Harris; Blues Who's Who Da Capo Press 1979
• Alan Lomax - The Land Where The Blues Began. New York: Pantheon, 1993.
• Robert Nicholson; Mississippi Blues Today ! Da Capo Press (1999) ISBN 0306808838 ISBN 978-0306808838
• Robert Palmer (writer); Deep Blues: A Musical and Cultural History of the Mississippi Delta - Penguin Reprint edition (1982) ISBN 0140062238; ISBN 978-0140062236
• Charles Reagan Wilson - William Ferris - Ann J. Adadie; Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (1656 pagine) The University of North Carolina Press; 2nd Edition (1989) - ISBN 0807818232 - ISBN 978-0807818237

See also

• Hill country blues
• List of blues musicians
• List of blues revival musicians
• List of country blues musicians
• List of people from Mississippi
• Blues Hall of Fame
• List of Peel sessions

References

1. ^ Seibert, Fred (2008). A Very Brief History of "Mississippi Fred McDowell > Live in New York
2. ^ Seibert, Fred (2009). A blues purist in the here and now.
3. ^ Seibert, Fred (2008). A Very Brief History of Johnny Woods > Mississippi Harmonica.
4. ^ ^{a b} 'Delta Blues' Back Sleeve Arhoolie F1021
5. ^ Pomposello, Tom. "Mississippi Fred McDowell"
6. ^ Msbluestrail.org
7. ^ Collins, Shirley (2004). America Over the Water. S.A.F. pp. 134-6. ISBN 0-946719-91-8
8. ^ ^{a b} Russell, Tony (1997). The Blues - From Robert Johnson to Robert Cray. Dubai: Carlton Books Limited. pp. 142–143. ISBN 1-85868-255-X. 
9. ^ The Oblivion Records Blog (2005-10)

External links

• Short documentary about Fred McDowell with performance
• Illustrated Fred McDowell discography
• Fred McDowell on Oblivion Records
• The last album recorded

Persondata
Name	Macdowell, Fred
Alternative names
Short description	American Hill country blues singer and guitar player.
Date of birth	January 12, 1904
Place of birth	Rossville, Tennessee, United States
Date of death	July 13, 1972
Place of death	Memphis, Tennessee, United States