Fred McDowell

Mississippi Fred McDowell

Fred McDowell (born January 12, 1904 in Rossville , Tennessee , † July 3, 1972 ), also known as Mississippi Fred McDowell , was a representative of the Hill Country Blues, a regional variant of the country blues , as a singer and guitarist .

life and work

Fred McDowell was born in Rossville, Tennessee, near Memphis. His parents died early in his youth. McDowell started playing guitar at the age of 14 and was soon performing at small dance events. He lived in his place of birth until he was 21 years old. After an extended stay in Cleveland , Mississippi - during the 1920s - he settled in Memphis, Tennessee. He got his first own guitar there in 1941 from a white Texan. Until then he was dependent on borrowed instruments. Soon after, McDowell moved near his sister to Como , 40 miles south of Memphis, but in the neighboring state of Mississippi. Until his discovery in 1959 he earned his living as a worker, most of the time on farms. From his teenage years he performed regularly as a musician in the evenings and on weekends. Unlike other blues musicians of his generation and caliber, he hadn't made any recordings in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1959 he was tracked down by Alan Lomax , who was named Fred McDowell as an insider tip on one of his numerous field research trips in northern Mississippi. Lomax found him at home after field work and took a few pictures on the spot. The next day he left him with the promise of a career in the music business.

Mississippi Fred McDowell became the first blues musician from northern Mississippi to attract the attention of a wider audience, having made a significant impact on the music of Junior Kimbrough and RL Burnside . In the 1960s, Fred McDowell made guest appearances at many festivals, recorded records and appeared in several documentaries, including "Newport Festival, Blues Maker" (short film; University of Mississippi), "Fred McDowell" (short film; Seattle Folklore Society), " Roots of American Music "(University of Washington School of Music). Two albums recorded by Chris Strachwitz ( Arhoolie Records ) in 1964 made him well known in the folk & blues scene. McDowell became a sensation at the Newport Folk Blues Festival in 1964 and toured North America and Europe during the period that followed. In 1965 and 1969 he traveled to England and Germany, among others.

McDowell died of cancer in 1972 at the age of 68 and was buried between Como and Senatobia , in Mississippi. In 1991 he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame . As an introduction to McDowell's music, his last recording "Live in New York" (Oblivion Records) - a 1971 live recording from the Gaslight Cafe in Greenwich Village , New York - is particularly recommended.

Instruments and playing technique

For the slide game, McDowell initially used a pocket knife, later he made a bottleneck from a Gordon's gin bottle. He used his ring finger or little finger to play bottleneck slide. In addition to the standard tuning, he played in various open tunings (mostly A or E). However, his moods were relative, he did not tune the guitar according to a piano or a tuning fork, but to match his voice. Fred McDowell preferred for recordings and concerts alike to 1968 a National - Resonator with wooden body and a Höfner (flattop, steel string). From 1968 he switched to a copy of a Gibson ES-335 , but finally found a good original (Gibson Trini Lopez Standard), which he played until his death.

The use of an electric guitar was unknown in the original Delta Blues genre until he switched to the Gibson copy and was received ambivalently. McDowell usually did not have an amplifier with him on his concert tours and studio recordings. He was dependent on the goodwill and the existing equipment of the organizers; this explains the large fluctuations in the sound quality of his electrical recordings.

McDowell's 1969 album "I Do Not Play No Rock 'N' Roll" was his first electric guitar recording. It contains parts of an interview in which, among other things, he discusses the origins of the blues. This interview was used in 1999 by the band Dangerman as a sample in their song of the same name. In the second half of the 1960s, McDowell had contact with much younger rhythm & blues and rock musicians. He taught Bonnie Raitt how to slide; The Rolling Stones covered "You Gotta Move" on their album Sticky Fingers .

Discography

(a selection from the albums released under his name)

• 1959: Shake 'Em On Down ; KC
• 1962: Mississippi Fred McDowell ; Heritage
• 1962: Fred McDowell ; Flyright
• 1963: Fred McDowell ; testament
• 1964: Delta Blues ; Arhoolie (Vol. 1)
• 1964: Fred McDowell Vol. 2 ; Arhoolie
• 1964: Keep Your Lamp Trimmed And Burning ; Arhoolie
• 1965: Fred McDowell And His Blues Boys ; Arhoolie
• 1968: Long Way From Home ; OBC
• 1969: I Do Not Play No Rock and Roll ; Capitol
• 1969: Standin On The Burying Ground (live in London) ; Red Lightnin '
• 1971: Mississippi Fred McDowell Live In New York ; Oblivion

Individual evidence

1. ^ Hill Country Blues. Retrieved August 4, 2019 . 
2. ↑ Pomposello, Tom. "Mississippi Fred McDowell - A Protégé Remembers The Legendary Bottleneck Stylist"
3. ↑ http://www.msbluestrail.org/_webapp_1964090/Hill_Country_Blues
4. ↑ The Oblivion Records Blog (2005-10) ( Memento from July 17, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
5. ↑ Pomposello, Tom. "Mississippi Fred McDowell - A Protégé Remembers The Legendary Bottleneck Stylist"

literature

• Obrecht, Jas (Ed.): Blues Guitar - The Men Who Made The Music. San Francisco 1993. ISBN 0-8078-4482-9
• Santelli, Robert: The Big Book of Blues: A Biographical Encyclopedia. New York 1993. ISBN 0-14-015939-8
• Titon, Jeff Todd: Early Downhome Blues. A musical & cultural analysis. Chapell Hill 1994. ISBN 0-87930-292-5