Heroes of the Blues: The Very Best of Fred McDowell

Fred McDowell | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 9, 2003)
• Original Release Date: 2006
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Shout Factory
• ASIN: B0000C3I7N
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #132,070 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Write Me a Few Lines

2. Trouble Everywhere I Go

3. Shake 'Em on Down

4. Louise

5. 61 Highway

6. My Baby

7. Been Drinkin'g Water Out of a Hollow Log

8. Get Right, Church

9. On the Frisco Line

10. Pea Vine Special

11. You Gotta Move

12. Drop Down Mama

13. Red Cross Store

14. Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning

15. Kokomo Blues

16. Jesus Gonna Make Up My Dying Bed

Editorial Reviews

About the Artist

When Mississippi Fred McDowell proclaimed on one of his last albums, "I do not play no rock'n'roll," it was less a boast by an aging musician swept aside by the big beat than a mere statement of fact. As a stylist and purveyor of the original Delta blues, he was superb; equal parts Charley Patton and Son House coming to the fore through his roughed up vocals and slashing bottleneck style of guitar playing. McDowell knew he was the real deal and while others were diluting and updating their sound, he stood out from the rest of the pack simply by not changing his style one iota. Though he scorned the amplified rock sound with a passion matched by few country bluesmen, he certainly had no qualms about passing any of his musical secrets along to his young, White acolytes, prompting several of them — including a young Bonnie Raitt — to develop slide guitar techniques of their own. Although generally lumped in with other blues "rediscoveries" from the '60s, the most amazing thing about him was that this rich repository of Delta blues had never recorded in the '20s or early '30s, didn't get "discovered" until 1959, and didn't become a full-time professional musician until the mid-'60s.

Product Description

• This release in the Heroes of the Blues series is the only true cross-licensed best-of package for Mississippi Fred McDowell • It's a complete career retrospective, covering all periods of his career and various record labels • It has been digitally re-mastered • Original cover art by Bill Stout

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Mighty Mississippi, May 26, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Heroes of the Blues: The Very Best of Fred McDowell (Audio CD)

This is my first Fred McDowell CD, and it's more than satisfying. His influence on rock music is obvious and significant despite his claim that he don't play no rock'n roll.
As Keith Richards might say, this music swings. McDowell is a performer with a distinct voice and slide guitar style. This CD is worthwhile.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This Ain't Rock and Roll, November 15, 2008

By 

Alfred Johnson (boston, ma) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Heroes of the Blues: The Very Best of Fred McDowell (Audio CD)

Over the past year I have been doing a review of all the major country blues artists that I can get material on. High on that list would be the performer on this CD, the legendary Mississippi Fred McDowell. Before discussing this CD, however, let me put this blues man in context. I first heard Brother McDowell and his magnificent slide guitar riffs as a backup to some of "Big Mama" Thornton's early blues numbers like "Little School Girl" and "The Red Rooster". I have also noted elsewhere that McDowell performed a very important service to the continuation of the country blues tradition when he provided mentorship to the great modern folk/country/blues singer songwriter Bonnie Raitt.

Ms. Raitt has profusely acknowledged his influence and just a peep at her own work demonstates the truth of that influence. Furthermore there is another place where McDowell has demonstrated his vast influence. That is on The Rolling Stones. Their main blues influence might have been another Delta product, Muddy Waters, but the Stones did a cover of McDowell's "You've Got To Move" (and gave him the royalties for his cancer treatment) on their Sticky Fingers album that has withstood the test of time. All these anecdotes are presented for one purpose- to show, if anyone needed showing, that Mc Dowell rightly takes his place with the likes of Bukka White, Skip James, Son House and Mississippi John Hurt as the legends of country blues.

For those not in the know the theme of the country blues is about rural life, about picking cotton in the Delta (or hard scrabble farming elsewhere) and, most importantly, about those Saturday night bouts with booze, women and worked up passions that could go any which way, including jail and the graveyard. McDowell follows that tradition although on a number of cuts here, those in which he is accompanied by his wife's singing along, he will also pay homage to the deeply religious expression of the travails of black existence at the turn of the 20th century Jim Crow South.

The most famous exemplars of that tradition are of course Blind Willie Johnson and the Reverend Gary Davis but others, including McDowell have taken a turn at that end of the blues spectrum in order to sanctify "the devil's music". Needless to say you must listen to "You've Got To Move", "Levee Camp Blues", "61 Highway" and "Kokomo Blues" here.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Freddie my man!, December 18, 2009

By 

John Negro (Sydney,Australia) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Heroes of the Blues: The Very Best of Fred McDowell (Audio CD)

I'm going to be unashamedly bias here because when it comes to down and dirty no holds barred Delta blues very few touch Fred Mcdowell full stop.

He has the voice, he has the chops, he has the songs and he certainly has the MOJO.

So close your eyes smell the chitlins absorb the sound of the deep south and say hello to Fred for me .