Week 51
Mississippi Fred McDowell, I Do Not Play No Rock 'n' Roll
(FUEL 2000 - 302 061 158 2)

My name is Fred McDowell. They call me Mississippi Fred McDowell. But my home's in Rossville, Tennessee. But it don't make any difference. It sound good to me, and I seem like I'm at home there when I'm in Mississippi ... and I do not play no rock and roll, y'all. I just play the straight natural blues...

Though frequently considered part of the "rediscovery" phenomenon of the early 1960s — in which collectors and scholars, enthralled with the music on their decades-old 78s, began tracking down the men and women who had recorded them — Mississippi Fred McDowell had actually never been on record prior to 1959.

The appearance of his recordings, however, was as stunning as the return from obscurity of Mississippi John Hurt , Son House, and Skip James. Like them, McDowell was a master of powerful country blues, a living link to a musical tradition that much of his new audience had thought dead, though in actuality it had never stopped fueling the house parties, juke joints, and front porches of the land where it was created. Even today, the music of R.L. Burnside, a neighbor and avowed student of McDowell, continues the tradition.

Recorded in 1969, I Do Not Play No Rock and Roll was ironically the closest McDowell came to playing it, at least on paper, for he is featured throughout on electric guitar, and with an occasional rhythm section. These choices, however, don't detract from the depth of his music. Every nuance of his slide playing, responding like another singer to the call of his voice, is revealed by the electric sustain, and his accompanists ride the groove with taste and subtlety — supporting, but not overdriving, McDowell's hypnotic rhythms.

This particular version of the recording gathers the original LP tracks, complete with McDowell's often lengthy and always intriguing stories and song introductions, and augments them with five extra ones featuring an unaccompanied McDowell. The result is powerful, driving, and deep — the straight natural blues.

Listen: Mississippi Fred McDowell - "61 Highway"
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