Some Blues you Just Have to Hear Series - Mississippi Fred McDowell

Fred McDowell was born in Rossville, Tennessee to parents who farmed the land. They died when he was fairly young. It is generally believed that he was born in 1904 but there is no documentation of that and he really isn’t sure. By the age of fourteen McDowell was playing the guitar using a slide that was hollowed out of a steer bone. Prior to that he had used a pocket knife for a slide and would later switch to a glass slide for a clearer sound. He played on street corners of Memphis for tips as a teen.

He eventually got tired of wondering around and ended up in Como, Mississippi and started farming. He still played his music on the weekends, performing at house parties and fish fries. It was in this town that musicologist Alan Lomax found McDowell some 30 years after he settled there. Although Lomax was able to convince him to record for the American Folk Music series at Atlantic Records it did little to change his fortune. He continued farming and playing only on the weekends, often on street corners or in front of stores.

Lomax had found a real Delta bluesman that no one had ever heard before since he had never been recorded. McDowell was not an ambitious man, he was content to share his music locally and be a farmer. It was not until Arhoolie Records founder Chris Strachwitz went after McDowell and talked him into recording for his label. There were two volumes, Fred McDowell, Vol 1, and Vol 2 that were recorded and released during the mid 1960’s. These homespun country blues made him popular on the festival circuit throughout the 60’s.

His first use of an electric guitar was in 1969 for the recording of I Do Not Play No Rock ‘n’ Roll for Capital Records. McDowell was filmed in 1968’s The Blues Maker, his own documentary in 1969 Fred McDowell, and 1940’s Roots of American Music: Country and Urban Music.

McDowell gave a young Bonnie Raitt lessons on the slide guitar and she has since recorded several of his songs. His songs have been recorded by many others including Bob Dylan, Dan Berth, The Rolling Stones’, Watermelon Slim and the North Mississippi Allstars.

McDowell died of cancer in 1972 and is buried at Hammond Hill Baptist church near Como.