Miss US 51
Fred McDowell -Como
Fred McDowell, a seminal figure in Mississippi hill country blues, was one of the most vibrant performers of the 1960s blues revival. McDowell (c. 1906-1972) was a sharecropper and local entertainer in 1959 when he made his first recordings at his home on a farm north of Como for noted folklorist Alan Lomax. The depth and originality of McDowell’s music brought him such worldwide acclaim that he was able to record and tour prolifically during his final years.
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| Fred McDowell Miss US 51 |
“Mississippi” Fred McDowell, as he was usually billed, was actually born and raised in Rossville, Tennessee. He never knew his birth date–January 12, 1904, is often cited, although census and Social Security documents point to 1906 or 1907. His music blended the sounds he heard from local guitarists in Tennessee with the pulsating juke joint grooves of the North Mississippi hills and the hard-edged blues he picked up during several years spent in the Delta. Spirituals were an important part of his repertoire, and one, “ You Got to Move,” recorded by McDowell in 1965, gained widespread fame when the Rolling Stones recorded it on their 1971 album Sticky Fingers.
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| Fred McDowell |
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| Fred McDowell |
"Mississippi" Fred McDowell, who learned to fret his guitar strings with a bottleneck or metal slide after seeing his father’s cousin play with a steak bone, honed his skills under the tutelage of longtime friend and neighbor Eli Green, who was said to possess magical powers. Green’s song “Write Me a Few Lines” became a McDowell signature piece and was later recorded by one of McDowell’s biggest admirers, Bonnie Raitt. McDowell was also so well known for the rhythmic tour-de-force “Shake ’Em On Down” that he earned the nickname “Shake ’Em.” His music laid the groundwork for generations of hill country musicians to come, most notably R. L. Burnside, who started out by playing McDowell’s guitar at a house party. Alan Lomax described McDowell as “a bluesman quite the equal of Son House and Muddy Waters, but, musically speaking, their granddaddy.”
The highly acclaimed albums that McDowell waxed during his belated recording career (1959-1971) proved that some of the greatest country blues music had gone undiscovered by the record companies that scoured the South for talent in the 1920s and ‘30s. McDowell found himself in demand at folk and blues clubs and festivals, yet kept a job pumping gas at the Stuckey’s candy store and service station on I-55 during his final years, even when he was at last able to support himself as a musician. Stuckey’s became his social hangout and his office, where he would receive phone calls from booking agents and record producers. In earlier years, McDowell held a variety of jobs, including picking cotton, driving a tractor, and working for an oil mill, a dairy, and a logging company. In 1940, when he applied for a Social Security card, he was employed by the Hotel Peabody in Memphis. Fifty-one years later the Peabody was the site of McDowell’s posthumous induction into the Blues Hall of Fame. McDowell died at Baptist Hospital in Memphis on July 3, 1972. He is buried in the Hammond Hill M. B. Church cemetery north of Como.
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Captions
In the 1960s McDowell entertained at fraternity tea parties at the University of Mississippi. He recorded the album I Do Not Play No Rock N’ Roll in Jackson at Malaco Studios in 1969 for two Ole Miss graduates who booked an act for those tea parties, Tommy Couch and Wolf Stephenson.
Fred McDowell and Bonnie Raitt, Philadelphia Folk Festival, 1971
Much of Fred McDowell’s best work appeared on the California-based Arhoolie label. His recordings included both blues and gospel songs, some featuring McDowell’s wife, Annie Mae, his sister Fannie; and the Hunter’s Chapel Singers.
McDowell’s first recordings for Alan Lomax are released for Atlantic Record’s Southern Folk Heritage series in 1960.
McDowell at Ann Arbor Blues Festival, 1969
Napolian Stricklin (1919-2001) of Como, shown here playing a homemade cane fife, learned guitar from Fred McDowell and sometimes accompanied him on harmonica.
Johnny Woods from Looxahoma played harmonica with Fred McDowell and with R. L. Burnside.
Memphis bluesman Daddy Mack Orr was born in Como in 1945. Other blues and should performers with Panola Country roots have included Jessie Mae Hemphill and Ranie Burnette; also form Como Big Daddy Kinsey, form Pleasant Grover, Ollie Nightingale from Batesville; and Big Amos Patton and Lucius Smith from Sardis
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| Capitol Label “I do Not Play No rock N’ Roll” side 2 |
Everybody's Down on Me
61 Highway
Glory Hallelluha
Jesus is on the Mainline
Produced by Tommy couch
for Malaco Productions
Album Coordinator Waybe Shuler
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Visit us online at www.MSBluesTrail.org
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