Customer Reviews

Mama Says I'm Crazy

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This session was recorded in 1965 at George Mitchell's house. Mitchell recorded over 70 hours of tapes during the 60's and 70 of Mississippi Fred and several others. Mama Says I'm Crazy marks the first of a series of sessions Fat Possum plans to release from the Mitchell Archive over the next several years. It's relaxed guitar-and-harmonica hill-country blues, which is part of a dying legacy of musicians. Now that the music is finally getting some attention, the king of Hill-country is finally getting the attention he deserved. He has greatly influenced artists such as T-Model Ford, R. L. Burnside, Solomon Burke, and Junior Kimbrough, and remains the forerunner for the genre. It's eleven soul-wrenching tracks of twelve-bar that will uncontrollably cause you to tap along with the beat. Johnny's harmonica never misses a beat, as he aggressively intertwines with Fred's sliding guitar licks. It's stripped-down and acoustic, and gives you the feeling that you're hitchhiking across the American south with a suitcase in your hand. Mississippi Fred McDowell is essential listening for any aficionado of the blues, and Fat Possum Records is making it possible for blues-lovers everywhere.

If you listen to this trying to figure out if it's good, you've missed the point. I did that on my first couple listens and it sounded like a disjointed mess mixing equal parts repetition and uncoordination. Along with all that, though, is some of the best music I've ever heard.

Woooow!!! Recorded 1967 in Como,Ms,here is a real "live" recording by the immense Mississippi Fred McDowell (Jan 12,1904-Jul 3,1972), a true giant of the country blues,and surely one of the best ones.The complicity between McDowell and harp player Johnny Woods is amazing,even if they didn't play together since 8 years at the time of this session.Of course,this record isn't for everybody's ears.If your favorite "blues" musicians are Duke Robillard,Poppa Chubby or Lucky Peterson,then you'll sure have some troubles listening to this music.Here is the real thing,a real,earthy,down home blues;an incredibely fascinating music,an even hypnotic one,recorded in some shack,down in Como, 37 years ago.McDowell is at his most ferocious playing here.He's an atypical blues artist:born at the beginning of the century,he waited until beeing over 60 to start a recording carreer.For some twenty years,he's one of my favorite blues players and singers,with Charley Patton,Bukka White,John Hurt,Jack Owens,Skip James,Henry Townsend and of course Robert Johnson;and,of course also,Robert Pete Williams.
This "field" recording may be Fred McDowell's most authentic album;Johnny Woods' harp playing,which is very present,gives me the same feeling as Big Boy Spires' harp playing with Jack Owens;the empathy between these two legends of Mississippi blues is amazing.Of course,the music isn't sweet and polite;this is the devil's music,and some rough one.This is music at its most violent,urgent,and even vital;here is a very very great blues record,an essential one;it will drive you into McDowell's african,fascinating blues;McDowell's hard swinging,haunting rhythms are at their best.This guy had a magical right hand !!!
As the next blues revival comes,with these movies by Wenders,Scorsese,Eastwood (and I guess his movie will be the best one)and others,I think the time is coming to forget Peterson,Chubby,and many others (including some Fat Possum so called "artists"),and to discover the real founders of the blues (and there are dozens of incredibely talented guys).
Well,anyway,you can listen to what and who you want;but here is a really very important blues album,and it would be a terrible mistake to miss it.

This is music that from its first notes grabs your soul and shakes you. This is the ultimate expression of interplay between harmonica, guitar, and vocals. I find it amazing that Fred and Johnny didn't have to rehearse. I can think of no other album where two musicians exhibit such an understanding of eachother's playing. Everytime I listen to this album I'm sent into a blues-induced trance. Nothing in the world exists except for the wailing harmonica and slide, the rocking rhythm of the drone strings. If this music doesn't make you move your hips, then (in the words of Louis Jordan): Jack, you dead.

I'm not sure what to make of the Fat Possum label -- Exploiters? Archivists? Precious signifiers? All of the above? -- but this release is full-throttle and full-throated. The high-octane interplay between McDowell and Woods has an almost primal ferocity; you can tell each note matters deeply, as if it were the musicians' last. A rousing listen, from start to finish.