Mississippi Fred McDowell

Mississippi Fred McDowell (Fred McDowell, Rossville, Tennessee, January 12, 1904 - Memphis,Tennessee, July 3, 1972) was a blues singer and guitar player in the North Mississippi style. McDowell was born in Rossville, Tennessee, near Memphis. His parents, who were farmers, died when McDowell was a youth. He started playing guitar at the age of 14 and played at dances around Rossville. Wanting a change from ploughing fields, he moved to Memphis in 1926 where he worked in a number of jobs and played music for tips. He settled in Como, Mississippi, about 40 miles south of Memphis, in 1940 or 1941, and worked steadily as a farmer, continuing to perform music at dances, and picnics. Initially he played slide guitar using a pocket knife and then a slide made from a beef rib bone, later switching to a glass slide for its clearer sound. He played with the slide on his ring finger. A pure delta blues musician, he plays "just the straight, natural blues," and he "do not play no rock and roll." He plays with a glass slide, but learned to play with a hollowed out beef bone. McDowell initially played the recognizable resonator guitar, but during tours and recordings beginning in the 1960s, he adopted the use of electric guitar, and was probably the first original delta or country blues musician to do so. McDowell's style is incredibly distinctive and recognizable, and is probably the dirtiest sounding guitarist ever, and one of the most influential. The slide guitar styles of Bonnie Raitt, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood of The Rolling Stones, and Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys are heavily influenced by McDowell's technique. McDowell died of cancer in 1972 and is buried at Hammond Hill M.B. Church, between Como and Senatobia. On August 6, 1993 a memorial was placed on the gravesite of Mississippi Fred McDowell at the Hammond Hill Baptist Church cemetery by the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund.