Mississippi Fred McDowell (Rounder)

Been on a blues bender of historic proportions the past few days, what with the Deep Blues Festival and the George Mitchell Collection (posts on each collecting dust on the homepage). Fred McDowell factors indelibly into both in terms of spirit and influence. This Rounder comp, parsed from field recording recitals cut in Fred’s Como, MS living room, contains some of his most focused performances on record. Many of the signposts of his secular repertoire come under scrutiny from “Red Cross Store” to “Highway 61”. No space ceded for spirituals, but the buzzing brilliance of his bottleneck harmonics leavens any potential slights to the Lord. The nasally warble of his voice comes through loud and clear too, wafting over acoustic fretwork by turns biting and anodyne (only the fragment “Como” finds him cradling electric). Sounds of friends and family members in attendance are audible on the fringes and give the music an even greater fly-on-wall flavor. McDowell is part of a triumvirate of Freds in my personal canon, the other two answering to Anderson and Wesley. This is the set that cemented his status though nearly all of his albums are worth hearing and owning, ill-founded charges of sameness and laurels-resting be damned.