Topic: Fred McDowell

[blueshome]

Don't know if anyone else has spotted this, but it is possible to free download a great set of Fred McDowell tunes off Tom Pomposello's Oblivion recordings.
Go to oblivionrecords.blogspot.com

[Bunker Hill]

Simon Napier was fulsome in his short review for Blues Unlimited (issue 92, June 1972)

OBLIVION OD-1 (US)
MISSISSIPPI FRED McDOWELL  "LIVE IN NEW YORK"

Shake 'em on down/I?m crazy about you baby/John Henry/ You got to move/Someday/Mercy/The lovin' blues/Going to the river/Baby please don't go

This is an exciting LP recorded as the title says, 'live', complete with intro by Fred to each number. He still claims 'not to play no rock 'n' roll' and apart from some bowing to electrics it is basically the same man Lomax found - was it really all that time ago...l959! It is interesting to see what he is doing nowadays with things like "Shake 'em", the evergreens "Someday (Baby)" and "Please don't go". Fred tends to extemporise, especially on "John Henry" and he obviously enjoys the varieties of sound and improvisation allowed him by the electric guitar. But he sticks to the blues, 'Delta' blues indeed, and with bass / 2nd guitar backing by Tom Pomposello, runs through a tough set. Whether collectors can absorb another LP with such familiar material is not for me to say, but this is an excellent recording - Fred has kept a high standard. It may be irrelevant, but the demise of Revival will, I predict, make their McDowell-Woods (Geo.Mitchell-made) album a sought after collector item in the not-too-far off future. 'Over recorded' as applied to Hopkins, or Big Joe, who have too often sounded jaded indeed, has never applied to Fred McDowell I've not heard him less than excellent, and this LP I recommend highly.

(The original sleeve notes can be read at Stefan's Fred Mc D page)

[Parlor Picker]

My opinion is quite simply that Fred could do no wrong.

[flakey foont]

the same website features a two-track single record by mississippi harmonica wizard johnnie woods,really worth downloading-by the way a session of fred and johnnie playing together is out on fat possum called "mama says i'm crazy", a highly recommended release.

[RobBob]

I met Tom Pomposello at one of my two visits to the Indian Neck Folk Festival in the 80's.  We got into some blues with slide guitar and banjo.  He was a fine fellow and we exchanged some tapes back then.  This stuff is all great that is out at the site. He was flattered to work with Fred. The world is richer for having had both these spirits in it.

[Bunker Hill]

He was flattered to work with Fred. The world is richer for having had both these spirits in it.

I corresponded with Tom for a brief period in 1973 and he always signed himself Honest Tom. I asked him about this in light of the fact that in the UK used car dealers usually called themselves "Honest Somebody-Or-Other" and, as a rule, were anything but "honest". His reply was that Fred once called him it in the early days of their friendship!

[Johnm]

Hi all,
I remember a funny story about how Mance Lipscomb, after having heard Fred announce "I do not play no Rock & Roll" one too many times at a festival or festivals, came on stage for his own set and announced, "I do not play no Rock & Roll---and I don't play no "Shake 'em on Down", neither!"
All best,
Johnm

[J. Baxter]

My parents were close friends of Tom Pomposello's in New York. My dad swapped some of his screenprints for lots of record doubles and tapes Tom had in his collection, including the Fred McDowell: Live in New York. That first track is a knockout.

[Bunker Hill]

I've just been thumbing through 1970s Jazz Journal in search of something I was asked to find when this jumped out at me in the January 1974 (p. 9) issue:

Fred?s Legacy

Dear Sir,

Reading many magazines, I often come across something annoying that brands a writer insensitive in my eyes and ears. Most of the time is makes no difference though often the writer's abuse of the pages available to him infuriate me, no one is really hurt.

But Tony Russell (Record Reviews, June 1973). He 'Loved Fred McDowell' indeed. Yes, 'Fred is Dead', but the contention that there is no need for royalties is not only stupid, but harmful to Fred's widow, Ester Mae McDowell who is still living in the trailer home in Como, Mississippi that Fred purchased in the last years of his life. As it is now, to my knowledge no record companies except Oblivion are paying Mrs McDowell the LP royalties due her, possibly because they might be under the impression that Annie McDowell is owed the money (she is not Ester Mae was Fred's wife at the time of his death last July) or possibly they just don't know what to do. With their ignorance supported by responsible journalism like Tony Russell's the financial legacy that Fred left for his wife will sit in the pockets of record company owners all over the world. People with unauthorized tapes of Fred McDowell will feel no qualms about releasing them, having been reassured that they will be ripping off no one.

Watch it Russell. A critic is also a journalist, and a journalist is accurate. Statements need to be checked. 'Or doesn't the system allow for elementary cross checking?' (to quote T.R's review).

FRED SEIBERT
Oblivion Records, New York.

A response was published in the March issue (p. 39-40), not from Tony but Chris Strachwitz:

Royalties

Dear Sir

With regard to the letter (Jan) from Mr. Seibert of Oblivion Records I would like to clarify a few things in regard to the record under discussion by Fred McDowell and about Fred's records and royalties as it pertains to Arhoolie Records and Tradition Music Co., Arhoolie having issued five LPs by the artist and Tradition Music Co. being the publishers of many of Fred's best known songs.

To begin with, the LP under discussion now issued on Black Lion :2460 193 was originally recorded by Alan Bates who obtained Fred?s address from me with the understanding that he pay Fred a 'reasonable' sum for this recording. The record was first issued on International Polydor in Germany (423249) and no payment was made to Fred. Upon hearing about this I sent cease and desist letters to both Bates and Polydor in Germany. Polydor informed me that the masters were not their responsibility but rather the producer's ? Mr. Bates. Since filing suit in such cases is prohibitively expensive all we can do is put pressure on this Mr. Bates to come up with some money to pay Mrs. McDowell. I am also sending a cease and desist notice to Black Lion Records; but since that is presumably Mr. Bates's own label I can only hope that he will have the decency to clear up this matter. I shall keep you informed about the outcome.

The reason I bring this up is that most blues and folk material of this kind does not sell enough to warrant a law suit which costs much more than is involved in any royalties which such LPs can possibly earn. Therefore, blues and folk artists have only one recourse and that is the public forum and pressure on the offending individuals.

However, since such name calling can get out of hand it is important that all these matters he researched thoroughly and anyone making accusations should have all the facts. It is here that I must object to Mr. Seibert's allegation that Oblivion is the only label paying Fred's widow Mrs. Ester Mac McDowell. Arhoolie Records and Tradition Music has been paying all due royalties to Mrs McDowell and intends to continue to do so.

Best wishes and good luck with the new magazine.

CHRIS STRACHWITZ
Arhoolie Production Co.
P.O. Box 9195, Berkeley, Calif 94709

[Gumbo]

Don't know if anyone else has spotted this, but it is possible to free download a great set of Fred McDowell tunes off Tom Pomposello's Oblivion recordings.
Go to oblivionrecords.blogspot.com

they've moved a bit but are still up.
Live In New York

[jaycee]

its worth mentioning i think that today is mississippi fred mcdowell's birtday born 1904 in rossville Tn. happy birthday fred we all sure miss you thats for sure.

[Bunker Hill]

Stefan has compiled a comprehensive McDowell discography http://www.wirz.de/music/mcdowfrm.htm

[Bunker Hill]

Here's the first ever interview conducted with Fred from Blues Unlimited 24, July-Aug 1965 (p 4-5)

FRED MCDOWELL
TALKS TO PETE WELDING

I'm about 59; I couldn't tell you exactly the date I was born. I was born in Rossville, Tenn.

I was just about a young man when I started playing guitar. In my teens I was. I used to go to dances; I used to sing to the music whilst others was playing. When they'd quit, I'd always grab the guitar, go to doing something with it. I was watching them pretty close to see what they were doing. My older sister   I nearly for?got   she played a little guitar, but didn't teach me anything. I didn't get a guitar of my own until 1941. When I was learning, when I was young, I was playing other people's guitars.

I was about 21 when I left Rossville. There I was plowing with a mule; my father was a farmer and I worked with him. We were work?ing 12 acres, growing cotton, peas and corn. We were able to live off of that at that time because things weren't near about as high as they are now. People raised stuff in then days, raised their own food and hogs, cows and like that. Didn't have that neat to buy.

I went to Memphis from there. I just got tired of plowing. I went there to look around and after I got there I started working at the Buckeye Oil Mill, sacking corn   this yellow corn, oats, sweet peas and all like that. They had a great big plant out there. I stayed there about three years, I think. Then I loafed around, stay?ed with different people, friends. I worked for the Dixon Brothers hooking logs on the track ; worked in Chickasaw stacking logs for barrels, worked at the Illinois Central shop in Memphis building freight cars.

All this time I was picking up guitar. I learned a lot from one fellow, Raymond Payne, in Rosaville. He was really good, played re?gular style, not bottleneck.

I got that bottleneck style from my uncle. He was an old man the first person I ever saw play with that. Me didn't play with a bottleneck; you know this big bone you get out of a steak? Well, he had done let it dry and smoothed it off and it sounded just like that bottleneck. That's the first somebody I saw play like that. This was in Rossville. I was a little bitty boy when I heard him do that. I just saw him do it, and after I learned how to play, I wade me one and tried it too. Started off playing with a pocket knife. I just remembered him doing it; he didn't show me. Not nothing.

I never could hardly learn no music by nobody trying to show me. Like, I hear you play tonight, well next week sometime it would come to me   what you was playing. I'd get the sound of it in my head. Then I'd do it my way, from what I had remembered.

I learned some from another boy named Vandy McKenna, He was a guitar picker too. Pretty near everybody down around Rossville, them boys could play a guitar, some kind of thing. Had dances every Saturday night, hold them in different houses. Sometimes there'd be two fellows playing together. Vandy and Veety Looney, they play?ed like one playing the lead and the other seconding. Play Big Fat Mama with the Meat Shaking on Her Bones and all such junk as that   anything they could think about that was good for dancing. I learned Drop Down, Mama from Vandy McKenna.

The way I got my first guitar; Mr. Taylor, a white man from Texas, he gave me a guitar. I was working in a milk dairy in White Station near Memphis. This was right before I moved to Mississippi. I've been living in Mississippi 24 years. I was married there in 1940, first day of December.

I wasn't making money from music; just playing around for dances and like that.

Sometimes they'd pay me and sometimes they wouldn't. I made up a lot of the songs I sing. It's like you hear a record or something or other, well, you pick out some words out of that record that you like; you sing that and you add something else onto it. It's just like if you're going to pray, and mean it, things will be in your mind; as fast you get one word out something else will come in there. That's the way it is about singing. Songs should tell the truth.

The way Mr. Lomax got in contact with me; he had been there once before a long time ago recording some old people. So he came to some more people's houses   they played guitar and violin   and so they was telling him about me and he come after me that night. I went over there and played. And he come to my house and stayed all night; I played all night that night.

I never played with any of those others at no dances. But I'd just go there and dig their playing and just as quick as they'd stop playing, well, I'd have my box and I'd play some too. See, one second the other. The guitar player, he'd second behind the violin, and I never could do that, I never could frail no guitar like that. That's why I never did play with them.

[Rivers]

Thanks Bunker, looking forward to immersing myself in this discussion over the weekend.

[Mr.OMuck]

I was at the shows that ended up on the Oblivion Record which was originally titled "Live at the Gaslight". A friend named Richard "Pig" Pennington was also involved in some executive capacity at tiny Oblivion records. Tom Pompacello seemed very proud of himself for hanging and playing bass with Fred. I remember not being so happy about Fred playing an electric guitar. All the stuff I'd heard from him prior were the Lomax recordings where he played an old acoustic archtop from which he extracted really beautiful accidental overtones with his slide. I felt those disappeared when he "went electric".