When Mississippi Fred McDowell was
finally recorded by Alan Lomax in 1959, he was in his mid-fifties.
That fact was pretty amazing considering how many Mississippi blues
artists were recorded in the 1920's and 1930's and somehow, he was
overlooked. Born in 1904, he was a few years younger than other
Delta blues artists like Charley Patton (1891), Skip James (l902),
Son House (1902), and Tommy Johnson (1896) and a few years older than
Robert Johnson (1911), Howlin' Wolf (1910), Muddy Waters (1913), and
John Lee Hooker (1917).
Like those listed above, he began
playing the blues as a youth, around the age of 14 playing for tips
at dances and fish fries around town (his parents died when he was
young). Unlike those others, he got his start in Rossville,
Tennessee, where he was born, not Mississippi.
He got tired of working on the farm and
moved to Memphis around the age of 21 in 1926. He worked building
railroad cars, working in a cotton oil mill, stacking logs. McDowell
had learned guitar in Rossville from a Mississippi native named
Raymond Payne and an uncle who played guitar with a slide made from a
dried steak bone. McDowell eventually began using a pocketknife for
a slide, developing his own unique style and technique.
In 1928, he moved to Mississippi, where
he picked cotton and traveled around, learning to play some of
Charley Patton's songs directly from Patton. He settled in Como,
Mississippi around 1940, where he worked as a farmer during the week
and continued to play music on weekends at parties, dances, and
picnics in the Como area.
Alan Lomax had already recorded several
blues men in the late 30's and early 40's, including Muddy Waters,
Big Bill Broonzy, Lead Belly, and Josh White. He had moved to
England during the Red Scare, but returned to the states in 1959. He
and English folk singer Shirley Collins began traveling through the
Southern U.S., hoping to re-record some of their previous artists
with better equipment.
One of the artists he re-recorded on
this trip (dubbed the Southern Journey) was Blind Sid Hemphill, who
lived in Panola County, MS, part of the North Mississippi hill
country. Hemphill recommended McDowell, who was still playing
parties throughout the area, and Lomax was able to record 14 tracks
by McDowell, who played his guitar on his neighbor Lonnie Young's
front porch.
These stunning, intimate tracks
included solo tracks by McDowell and others with guitarist Miles
Pratcher, Fanny Davis (who played tissue paper and comb!), his wife
Annie Mae, James Shorty, Sidney Carter, and Rose Hemphill all singing
background vocals. Some of the cuts were featured on a four-volume
set of those recordings called Sounds of the South in 1960 and
later all 14 tracks were compiled by Rounder Records (see below), among others.
After the field recordings, McDowell
simply returned to farming and playing for tips outside a Stuckey's
store at Como, but those recordings did catch the attention of Chris
Strachwitz, who came to Como to record him. There were two volumes
released by Arhoolie, now collected as Mississippi Delta Blues
in one volume, and they really caught the attention of the 60's blues
and folk communities.
Here was a guy who completely missed
the 20's and 30's recordings and managed to avoid any attention at
all, just working as a farmer and playing music on the side. He was
so modest and unassuming as well, just seeming to take all the
attention in stride.
McDowell made subsequent recordings for
Testament and Atlantic Records in the mid 60's, and numerous other
recordings have surfaced over the years as well, a couple of which
we'll discuss below.. His albums were a mix of blues standards and
originals and spirituals, some of which featured vocals from his wife
Annie Mae and the Hunter's Chapel Singers of Como.
In 1969, he went to Malaco Studios in
Jackson, MS, armed with an electric guitar. This drove the blues
purists nuts, but as gripping and compelling as McDowell's acoustic
guitar playing was, his “plugged-in” brand of blues (complete
with a rhythm section) was equally compelling. It was a perfect fit for electricity and I Do
Not Play No Rock 'n' Roll is an album that should be
must-listening for any fan of Mississippi blues.
McDowell played multiple blues
festivals, including the Newport Folk Festival and the American Folk
Blues Festival in Europe. He appeared in several documentary films,
and soon was influencing many of the up-and-coming blues-rock
artists, such as Bonnie Raitt, who recorded several of his songs, and
the Rolling Stones, whose version of “You Got To Move” on their
Sticky Fingers album is one of their most memorable tracks.
McDowell with Bonnie Raitt
Sadly, Mississippi Fred McDowell's career was cut short because he was diagnosed with cancer
in 1971. He subsequently passed away on July 3, 1972 at the age of
68. He was buried at Hammond Hill Baptist Church, between Como and
Senatobia, MS. The Mount Zion Memorial Fund placed a memorial on his
grave in 1993, replacing the old damaged one, which had McDowell's
name misspelled and is now on display at the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale). There's also a Mississippi Blues Trail marker for
McDowell in downtown Como.
If you hear any North Mississippi hill country blues recordings, from R.L. Burnside and his family to the North Mississippi Allstars, it will all make sense as to how important Mississippi Fred McDowell was to Delta blues and continues to be to contemporary Mississippi blues. Their albums have often included covers of McDowell tunes and new recordings that owe much to his style.
There are a stack of Mississippi Fred McDowell albums available, LP, CD, or digital. You can't really go wrong with any of them, but I'm going to list a few that would be a nice start for newcomers. The above-mentioned Alan Lomax recordings (First Recordings: The Alan Lomax Portrait Series on Rounder Records) are, as the title indicates, the very first one done by McDowell. They are very good, among his best, and have great sound, like you're listening from the front yard. He performs solo and with the other artists mentioned above. The Arhoolie set Mississippi Delta Blues, also mentioned above, should definitely be on your list as well. There are a couple of tracks recorded by his friend Eli Green included, but McDowell's songs include many of his originals and a few of his renditions of traditional Delta blues tunes.
In addition, the 2003 Shout Factory! compilation set Heroes of the Blues: The Very Best of Mississippi Fred McDowell catches what those first two collections missed, plus a few other, mixing blues with spirituals. It's a very fine set and certainly covers his career pretty well. Just about every McDowell tune that you've heard about over the years is included here and, even though he redid many of these over and over again, the versions collected here are all first-rate, so this might be the best starting point for newcomers.
A couple of others worth mentioning are the Capitol Records electric set, I Do Not Play No Rock 'n' Roll, for which I'm so glad McDowell decided to "plug in." These are truly remarkable and shed a whole new light on his brand of blues. The Rounder set, Mississippi Fred McDowell, was recorded at his home in 1962, with no intention of being released. The set is pretty intimate, he was just playing for himself more or less, and there's a powerful, raw energy to the songs.
Speaking of powerful, raw energy, be sure to check out Mama Says I'm Crazy on Fat Possum Records. This set was recorded by George Mitchell in 1967 and reunited McDowell and harmonica player Johnny Woods. They had not played together in eight years, but you would never know from their performances. If you happened to visit a Como, MS house party in the mid 60's, this is probably close to what you would have heard and if you're a Delta blues fan, it's just wonderful.
Mississippi Fred McDowell may be a blues artists that more recent blues fans might have missed, but if they've listened to some of the newer blues artists, especially the North Mississippi hill country artists, they've gotten a taste of his sound. However, new listeners should know that no one played this sound better than Fred McDowell and he has a lot of material out there to be sampled, so please check him out.
Here are a couple more new releases for blues fans to check out. You'll be glad that you did.....there have been a lot of outstanding releases this year and the list of great new albums seems to be picking up with the hot weather approaching.
Last month, John Primer received a marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail near his birthplace in Camden, MS. I was hoping to go and hopefully get a chance to meet him, but things didn't work out. Primer has always released quality music over his years as a solo act and he's really been on a roll in recent years, with several fine albums on Blues House Records and a couple of collaborations with Bob Corritore. I've been a fan since I first heard him with Magic Slim and the Teardrops.
Like just about every musician in Chicago between 1955 and 1985, John Primer got his start and played a lot of gigs at the fabled Theresa's Lounge, which was owned and operated by Theresa Needham. Primer has assembled ten of his fellow Theresa veterans - harmonica masters Billy Branch and Harmonica Hinds, vocalists Mary Lane and Willie Buck, bass players Bob Stroger and Jeff Brinkman, drummers Twist Turner and Tony Mangiullo, and fellow guitarists Carlos Johnson and John Watkins for Tribute to Theresa's Lounge (Blue House Productions).
The thirteen songs on the album consist of four Primer originals written for the occasion paying tribute to Ms. Needham and reflecting on his time there and the importance of keeping the blues alive for future generations. The remainder of the songs are tunes that would be easily recognized by those who were a part of the audience on a given night at Theresa's and these tunes will be recognized by most blues fans, too. The performances are all great (all of the musicians are in their 70's, 80's and 90's and are still making vital contributions to the music) and it's a wonderful throwback to the way things used to be in Chicago and the blues world in general. It's hard to imagine a blues fan not wanting to hear this disc. Add this one to your must-hear list.
I used to regularly attend the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in the late 80's and early 90's, but have only attended once since Katrina, in 2015. One of the thrills of going each year was discovering not only the new music being played, but the classic tunes that were part of the city's musical history. Well, folks......The Joe Krown Trio + 1 have recaptured that feeling for me with their latest release, Qualified (Sledgehammer Blues).
I first encountered keyboardist extraordinaire Krown as part of Luther "Guitar Junior" Johnson's band on a couple of albums, then several of Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown's albums, plus three collaborative efforts with guitarist Walter "Wolfman" Washington and drummer Russell Batiste, Jr. that mixed blues, jazz, and soul in equal measures. For this release, Krown and his trio (Casandra Faulconer - bass, Eric Boliver - drums) are joined by singer/guitarist Papa Mali, hence the "Trio + 1" tag.
Qualified includes eleven tracks, two originals by Papa Mali and one by Krown, plus covers of eight classic Crescent City tunes associated with Allen Toussaint, Professor Longhair, James Booker, and Dr. John that will have fingers snapping, toes tapping, and booties shaking. There's also a special appearance by Cyril Neville who delivers a masterful vocal on a fresh take of Toussaint's "Fortune Teller." Papa Mali does a fine job on vocals throughout and delivers the guitar goods on a couple of other tracks, while Krown and the Trio have a lot of fun playing these tunes. Joe Krown's albums are always a lot of fun, paying tribute to the past while continuing to create new music that carries the traditions onward, and this one is no exception.
Looking back quite a few years for our "Blast from the Past" pick, I highly recommend Alligator Records' second-ever release in 1973, Big Walter Horton with Carey Bell. We previously looked at the life of Big Walter Horton on the blog a little over ten years ago after a tribute album was released. Horton was one of the legends of the harmonica and he made it on our Blues Mount Rushmore list of harmonica players. He was not that well known and never really fronted his own band because he was very shy and quiet, but he backed a host of blues artists like Robert Johnson, Johnny Shines, Homesick James, Jimmy Rogers, Eddie Taylor, Honeyboy Edwards, Otis Rush, and later was a part of Willie Dixon's Blues All Stars, and made an appearance in the first Blues Brothers film during the Maxwell Street scene.
Horton made recordings of his own for Chess Records and Sun Records (leased to Modern/RPM Records) in the late 40's and became one of Chess Records' go-to harp players for various sessions. He also recorded the classic instrumental for Sun Records known as "Easy," and also recorded for Cobra, Jewel, and States Records. His harp can be heard on many Chicago blues classics like Jimmy Rogers' "Walking By Myself," Otis Rush's "I Can't Quit You Baby," and Johnny Shines' "Evening Sun." He also appeared on the Chicago/The Blues/Today series on Vanguard Records before recording this wonderful album with his protege Carey Bell.
By the time, this session was recorded, Bell was not really a protege.....he had already recorded a few times himself. There are eleven tracks here and the two harp masters are backed by the legendary Eddie Taylor on guitar, Joe Harper (who played bass on Bell's albums), and Chicago South Side drummer Frank Swan. Horton and Bell work so well together and to me, it feels like Horton was really inspired on these tracks, both instrumentally and vocally. The interplay with Bell really seems to bring out the best in his performance. In Bruce Iglauer’s book, he tells about Walter’s reluctance to play and how Bell would gently encourage him to play, which really brought him out. Big Walter Horton has always been one of my favorite harmonica players and this album is my favorite of his releases. Thankfully, he was able to record a few more before he passed away in 1981.
Looking at few new ones that are well worth any blues fan's time, plus a great one you might have missed from a few years back. Here we go......
Two of my favorite blues and soul vocalists are Johnny Rawls and Dave Keller. I've been a big fan of Rawls since his Rawls & Luckett release on Rooster Blues in the early 90's (Can't Sleep at Night) and Keller since his appearance as a guest vocalist on Ronnie Earl's Living in the Light release on Stony Plain in 2009. Both men have recorded prolifically over the past 15 - 20 years and they've shared the stage many times over the years.
Thank goodness they finally decided to make an album together, and what an album it is! Tribute to Soul (Third Street Cigar Records) is an album any blues or soul music fan should have in their collection. Rawls and Keller have been friends for over 15 years and have toured together several times across the U.S,, but this is their first collaborative effort.
The song list pays tribute to many of Rawls' mentors, so there are tunes associated with Joe Tex, James Carr, Otis Clay, Eddie Floyd, Z.Z. Hill, Tommy Tate, O.V. Wright, Benny Lattimore, Little Johnny Taylor, Willie Hightower, and Jimmy Hughes. Some of the songs will be familiar to blues and soul fans, but there are several seldom-heard treasures that will become new favorite songs to many listeners. Rawls and Keller are both wonderful and Keller's band provides stellar support, with Keller on lead guitar throughout. I can't tell you how excited I was to get this CD. This is a long overdue collaboration and, hopefully, one that might reoccur from time to time in the future.
Sadly, there's no videos of the songs yet available on YouTube, but here's a Rawls/Keller combo from Keller's 2020 duet album What You Give - Duets (another great release) that will give you an idea of what to expect.
Friday Blues Fix interviewed Zac Harmon way back in 2012 and that Ten Questions With....can be seen here. He got his start in Jackson, MS on Farish Street, playing with local legends like Dorothy Moore, Sam Myers, and Z.Z. Hill before moving to Los Angeles in the 80's, where he worked as a musician, writer, and producer for the O'Jays, the Whispers, Karyn White, Alexander O'Neal, and Black Uhuru.
Despite his success, he longed to return to his roots, so he started recording the blues in the early 2000's. His band won the I.B.C.'s Best Unsigned Band award and I first caught up with him with his subsequent release, The Blues According to Zachariah, which won the 2006 Blues Music Award for Best New Artist Debut. He's been pretty prolific since that time, cutting albums for a host of labels including Blind Pig and Catfood Records.
His most recent release is Zac Harmon & The Drive Live, which was recorded at various shows in the U.S. and Europe and effectively captures Harmon and the band's energetic stage presence. Most of the songs are taken from Harmon's earlier releases, but several of them are from his earlier releases that blues fans might have missed the first time around. There are also a couple of crowd pleasers from his most recent releases as well. Harmon is in good voice and the band provides excellent support throughout the set. If you haven't experienced the superb blues and soul artistry of Zac Harmon, this is a fantastic place to get on board.
It always puts a hop in my step when I get a new album from the Sauce Boss. Also known as Bill Wharton, the Sauce Boss is a most interesting character. He's a master guitarist and his original tunes are always entertaining. His website EPK describes him as "a musician, a chef, a raconteur, and purveyor of gourmet hot sauce (Liquid Summer Datil Pepper Hot Sauce), a songwriter, and a standup comedian.”
During his shows, he makes a pot of gumbo on stage during his performance (the recipe is on his website) and serves gumbo to the audience at the end of his gig. He's also the subject of the Jimmy Buffett song "I Will Play For Gumbo" and he's appeared in Living Blues, GQ, and Gourmet magazines, more than likely the only person ever to appear in all three.
The Sauce Boss' latest release is With Extra Sauce. The "extra sauce" consists of guitarist Neal Goree, bassist Kendrick Jacobs, and drummer Brett Cook, along with string arrangements that accompany a couple of the songs, eight of which are Sauce Boss originals. He plays marvelous slide guitar throughout (on one track, he plays a three-string cigar box guitar in a 9" cast iron frying pan), and his own songs are always a lot of fun. The two cover tunes are classics, but the Sauce Boss and friends put a fresh coat of paint on both. What a fun album! You can also hear more about the Sauce Boss via his memoir The Live and Times of Blind Boy Billy, which includes his story, along with songs and recipes.
Let's look back at a great release that you might have missed first time around....Johnny Heartsman'sThe Touch. Apparently, a lot of folks may have missed it. For some reason, I missed it as well. Heartsman played guitar, keyboards, and flute and played on many recordings in the San Francisco Bay area in the 50's and 60's while playing with Jimmy McCracklin, Sugar Pie DeSanto, Big Mama Thornton, Al King (check out his guitar on King's Atlantic single "Reconsider Baby"), Jimmy Wilson, Joe Simon, and Johnny Fuller. He had a hit of his own in 1957 with "Johnny's House Party (Parts 1 and 2)," on Music City Records which made it to #13 on the Billboard R&B chart.
Heartsman moved between blues and R&B in the 60's and 70's before settling into the blues groove in the late 80', when he released a solo album, Sacramento, that was well-received. In 1991, he recorded The Touch for Alligator with Dick Shurman serving as producer. When I interviewed Shurman years ago, he cited Heartsman as his favorite all-time blues musician. The album is a seamless mix of blues, soul, and jazz, probably not as much "Genuine Houserockin' Music" as normally associated with Alligator and that might have been some of the problem with it's popularity, or lack thereof.
It is a highly entertaining album that finds Heartsman on guitar, keyboards, and flute while providing solid vocals. There are some tracks that swing really well and I really like his work on the keys, which have a B3 flavor to them. While I've never really associated the flute with the blues, the tracks on which he plays flute work really well. I can remember Alligator head man Bruce Iglauer expressing his disappointment at the sales of The Touch in one of his Living Blues letters and I have to agree....it really deserved better. I wish I had picked it up back in the early 90's, but I'm glad to have it now and most blues fans will certainly enjoy it.
Several years ago, I got a Facebook friend request from a young guy in Central Mississippi named Harrell Davenport. Now I wasn't sure who he was at the time, so I checked his profile and saw that he was 15 years old and a big blues fans, which is a rarity in this day and time, at least around here. I accepted his friend request and soon, we began corresponding. He was already pretty proficient on guitar and harmonica and would share videos of him playing and singing on Facebook.
The coolest thing about this young man was that his musical tastes went beyond blues. While we discussed various blues artists like Sonny Boy Williamson I and Elmore James, he also knew quite a bit about other artists in jazz and even reggae. He was pretty well-read and willing to dig deeper into the music all the way back to the roots, which is pretty remarkable for any blues fan, much less a 15 year old blues fan.
It was really great to see blues musicians commenting on his Facebook videos, offering praise, advice, and encouragement. That's one of the great things about the blues world......all of the musicians that I've encountered have always been a pleasure to deal with. They are very nice and giving to their fans and to their fellow musicians, and it made my heart feel good to see how they worked with Harrell Davenport.
Over the past couple of years, Davenport has been playing some of the blues festivals around the country, winning acclaim for his performances and, really, he sounds like he's been doing this a whole lot longer than he's actually been around. He performs with an understated confidence, energy, and enthusiasm and the fans really respond to his music.
Over the past year, he's released several fine singles (one of which we reviewed here back in November) and they have also been well-received. June 5th will mark the release of his first full-length album, Young Rell, on Little Village Records. I will be reviewing it in depth in the June issue of Blues Bytes, but here's a capsule summary.....
The young man has learned his lessons well. The twelve tracks include ten originals that range from Chicago blues and Delta blues to southern soul. His songwriting is quite impressive, drawing from experiences in his own life and he digs deep into his own soul for some of these numbers. His harmonica playing and guitar work (he plays lead on seven tracks, Andersen on four) are also first rate and his vocals are also strong. This is a powerful debut release from a young blues artist who offers further proof that the blues are alive and well and should be for a long time.
My other review this week is a book review. Many blues fans are familiar with Robert Mugge, the filmmaker who's responsible for some of the best documentaries on blues, jazz, Louisiana music, gospel and soul in the past five decades. Among those works are Deep Blues, Last of the Mississippi Juke, Pride and Joy: The Story of Alligator Records, Hellhounds on My Trail: The Afterlife of Robert Johnson, Blues Breaks, Blues Divas, A Night at Club Ebony, Deep Sea Blues, All Jams on Deck, Big Shoes: Walking and Talking the Blues, Deep Roots, The Art and Music of Bill Steber and Friends, and Elvin Bishop's Raisin' Hell Revue. Mugge has also done films on Sun Ra, Sonny Rollins, and the formidable Creole and Zydeco music scenes in Louisiana, plus the moving New Orleans Music in Exile, about the city's musicians and music scene recovering from the double whammy of Hurricane Katrina and Rita in 2005.
Mugge's latest book is Quotes from the Road: The Wit and Wisdom of American Musicians (The Sager Group), which features excerpts from 150 of the interviews that he conducted during the making of his films. Many of the discussions are items that were not heard in the films, so there's lots of new info if you've seen the films already. The book is divided into 25 chapters, each addressing a different theme, such as beginnings, family traditions, struggles with recording and touring, musical styles and techniques, favorite performances and venues, and songwriting. Other topics discussed include racism, politics, and dealing with adversity in daily life and with their careers.
All of the subjects are worth reading about, but blues fans will enjoy the interviews with Lonnie
Brooks and his son Ronnie, Lil' Ed Williams, Koko Taylor, Katie
Webster, Marcia Ball, Robert Lockwood Jr., Roy Rogers, Willie Coffee
(friend of Robert Johnson), Vasti Jackson, Chris Thomas King, Bobby
Rush, Little Milton, Willie King, Deborah Coleman, Denise LaSalle,
Odetta, Ann Peebles, Irma Thomas, Mavis Staples, Otis Clay, Tommy
Castro, Kim Wilson, Buckwheat Zydeco, Elvin Bishop, Ted Drozdowski,
R.L. Hulsman, Larry McCray, Coco Montoya, Lee Oskar, Jimmy Thackery,
Rev. Billy C. Wirtz, and other contributors. The interviews with Al Green, Willie Mitchell, Sun Ra and Sonny Rollins are also fascinating, along with artists like Boozoo Chavis, John Delafose, Beau Jocque, Nathan Williams Sr. and Jr., Corey Ledet, Rosie Ledet, Lawrence "Black" and Sean Ardoin, and Major Handy, and the entire chapter on recovering from Katrina is recommended reading.
Mugge always brings the best out of his interview subjects. They always feel so comfortable talking to him and it actually feels like these artists are talking directly to you. I have to admit that I read this book in only a few sittings. It was that interesting and compelling. If you are a fan of these styles of music, then you will probably find yourself enthralled with its contents as well.
For this week's oldie but goodie, let's check out U.P. Wilson. Many years ago on this blog, I devoted a post to the life and music of the Texas Tornado way back in 2011. However, I had not delved very deeply into his non-JSP Records catalog. I recently began listening to some of those recordings and the first one I picked up was On My Way (Fedora Records).
Fedora released some pretty good recordings over ten year-plus period from 1997 to around 2008, and this release from Wilson was issued around 1999 and was taken from an LP Wilson released on the European label Red Lightnin' Records in 1988. The first ten tracks are from the original album with the last two tracks coming from a live appearance, also from 1988.
When I first heard U.P. Wilson, I was not prepared for his intensity and his energy. I ended up picking up all of his JSP recordings....he was well represented by them with five albums, a "best of", and appearances on a few compilation discs. He passed away in 2004, but the label also released a DVD of one of his performances in the UK, which showed that he was a master showman on stage just like he was on his recordings.
On My Way is a few years before his JSP recordings and it is raw and ragged, with a mix of covers (done in the distinctive U.P. Wilson style) and lots of his fierce and fiery fretwork. I remember the cover of his first JSP release had a blurb stating that he was one of Stevie Ray Vaughan's favorite guitarists and listening to On My Way, it's easy to understand why. Any of Wilson's releases are worth a listen, but this is a good one to start with if you can find it.
