Mississippi Fred McDowell- Delta Blues

Originally posted on Instagram, April 4, 2020.

Shortly before coronavirus brought the world to a screaming halt, I worked out a deal for the store where I work to order albums directly from Smithsonian Folkways. Am I proud of myself? You bet. Was I mostly in it to get limited edition blues records for myself? Uh... no comment.

If you're a nerd like me, you look at the title of Mississippi Fred McDowell's Delta Blues and say "Hey, wait a minute," because McDowell, who famously "[did] not play no rock and roll", did not play no Delta blues, either. But I also understand why, in 1964, a folk label would advertise him as such- the Delta blues were something people knew about. It would be another generation before the followers of Fred McDowell would plug in their electric guitars and show the outside world the meaning of the hill country blues. Back in the 1960s, one of the few (if not the only) hill country bluesmen known outside the hills of Mississippi was Fred McDowell.

In the outside world, Fred McDowell was probably best known for his slide guitar version of the gospel song "You Got To Move", which the Rolling Stones covered on their album Sticky Fingers. But in the hills of North Mississippi, people flocked to hear him play the blues standard "Shake 'Em On Down". The latter song is included on this album, along with a selection of other songs in McDowell's signature, energetic slide-guitar style.

The final song is a little different, though- it's a gospel song with vocals by McDowell's wife, Annie Mae, and is the kind of song the McDowells would sing and play together on Sundays. While Fred and Annie Mae McDowell long ago laid their burdens down, it's pretty incredible to think that more than 50 years later, we can still spend a little bit of Sunday morning with them and their music.