Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Mississippi Fred McDowell performing' Going Down The River".
CD REVIEW
Here is a another of an old time blues artists. Mississippi Fred, as indicated in the headline, that did not perform rock 'n' roll. Okay?
The Best Of Mississippi Fred McDowell, Fred McDowell, Arhoolie records, 2002
Over the past year I have been doing a review of all the major country blues artists that I can get material on. High on that list would be the performer on this CD, the legendary Mississippi Fred McDowell. Before discussing this CD, however, let me put this blues man in context. I first heard Brother McDowell and his magnificent slide guitar riffs as a backup to some of “Big Mama” Thornton’s early blues numbers like "Little School Girl" and "The Red Rooster". I have note elsewhere that McDowell performed a very important service to the continuation of the country blues tradition when he provided mentorship to the great modern folk/country/blues singer songwriter Bonnie Raitt.
Ms. Raitt has profusely acknowledges his influence and just a peep her own work betrays that influence. Furthermore there is another place where McDowell demonstrated his vast influence. That is on The Rolling Stones. Their main blues influence might have been another Delta product, Muddy Waters, but The Stones did a cover of McDowell’s "You Got To Move" (and gave him the royalties for his cancer treatment) on their Stick Fingers album that has withstood the test of time. All these anecdotes are presented for one purpose- to show, if anyone needed showing that McDowell rightly takes his place with the likes of Bukka White, Skip James, Son House and Mississippi John Hurt as the legends of country blues.
For those not in the know theme of the country blues is about rural life, about picking cotton in the Delta (or hard scrabble farming elsewhere) and, most importantly, about those Saturday night bouts with booze, women and worked up passions that could go any which way, including jail. McDowell follows that tradition although on a number of cuts here, those accompanied by his wife’s singing along, he will also pay homage to the deeply religious roots of black existence at the turn of the 20th century South. The most famous exemplars of that tradition are of course Blind Willie Johnson and the Reverend Gary Davis but other, including McDowell have taken a turn at that end of the blues spectrum in order to sanctify “the devil’s music”. Needless to say you must listen to "You Got To Move", "61 Highway" and "Kokomo Blues" here.
CD REVIEW
Here is a another of an old time blues artists. Mississippi Fred, as indicated in the headline, that did not perform rock 'n' roll. Okay?
The Best Of Mississippi Fred McDowell, Fred McDowell, Arhoolie records, 2002
Over the past year I have been doing a review of all the major country blues artists that I can get material on. High on that list would be the performer on this CD, the legendary Mississippi Fred McDowell. Before discussing this CD, however, let me put this blues man in context. I first heard Brother McDowell and his magnificent slide guitar riffs as a backup to some of “Big Mama” Thornton’s early blues numbers like "Little School Girl" and "The Red Rooster". I have note elsewhere that McDowell performed a very important service to the continuation of the country blues tradition when he provided mentorship to the great modern folk/country/blues singer songwriter Bonnie Raitt.
Ms. Raitt has profusely acknowledges his influence and just a peep her own work betrays that influence. Furthermore there is another place where McDowell demonstrated his vast influence. That is on The Rolling Stones. Their main blues influence might have been another Delta product, Muddy Waters, but The Stones did a cover of McDowell’s "You Got To Move" (and gave him the royalties for his cancer treatment) on their Stick Fingers album that has withstood the test of time. All these anecdotes are presented for one purpose- to show, if anyone needed showing that McDowell rightly takes his place with the likes of Bukka White, Skip James, Son House and Mississippi John Hurt as the legends of country blues.
For those not in the know theme of the country blues is about rural life, about picking cotton in the Delta (or hard scrabble farming elsewhere) and, most importantly, about those Saturday night bouts with booze, women and worked up passions that could go any which way, including jail. McDowell follows that tradition although on a number of cuts here, those accompanied by his wife’s singing along, he will also pay homage to the deeply religious roots of black existence at the turn of the 20th century South. The most famous exemplars of that tradition are of course Blind Willie Johnson and the Reverend Gary Davis but other, including McDowell have taken a turn at that end of the blues spectrum in order to sanctify “the devil’s music”. Needless to say you must listen to "You Got To Move", "61 Highway" and "Kokomo Blues" here.
