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Mississippi Fred McDowell Blues Trail Marker

on May 8, 2009 No comments

Bonnie Raitt attends Fred McDowell honor

Candice Ludlow – WKNO – 2009-05-08

Very Happy and emotional reunion of sorts, Dick Waterman and Bonnie Raitt, back in Como, Mississippi to honor their old friend Mississippi Fred McDowell
Very Happy and emotional reunion of sorts, Dick Waterman and Bonnie Raitt, back in Como, Mississippi to honor their old friend Mississippi Fred McDowell

The Mississippi Blues Trail Marker honoring Mississippi Fred McDowell was unveiled Thursday in Como, Mississippi. Candice Ludlow has more.

That’s the music of Mississippi Fred McDowell. Notice the resonating slide sound?

Como is where Mississippi Fred McDowell called home. It’s located 45 miles south of Memphis along Highway 55.

Mississippi Fred McDowell was born and raised in Rossville, TN, just outside of Memphis in the early 1900’s. He learned to play slide guitar from his father’s cousin who used a steak bone to slide along the frets as he played. Later, Mississippi Fred McDowell used a bottleneck slide.

Dick Waterman was McDowell’s manager during the 60s.

“He represents what’s called the hill country style. There’s the delta style of Charlie Patton, Son House, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and that type that went up to Chicago. There’s a hill country style that comes from Fred. It’s really most prevalent in Como, Senatobia, Holly Springs,”

Dick Waterman said.

It was sweltering hot on Main Street, a two-lane road through town with brick storefronts. Approximately 200 people were fanning their faces as the dedication began with students from a local high school playing and singing one of Mississippi Fred McDowell’s songs.

Grammy award winning singer-songwriter Bonnie Raitt made a special appearance at the dedication for her mentor.

“Well, he was one of the first blues artists that I got to meet, and I fell in love with his music from the first time I heard it on record. To have the honor and privilege to be able to be friends and tour with him in my early career was a gift I think like no other. His style of slide playing and his rhythm playing influenced me tremendously. I don’t know why we hit it off so much, but we just loved each other very much. It was a big loss when he passed when I was only 22, so it means a lot to me to be able to be here today.”
“Well, I’m so happy to hear that they’re doing this blues trail with 150 markers, elevating the music of blues and culture to the rest of the world. It’s been long overdue. Mississippi Fred McDowell is a giant in blues and there are so many other people that deserve that attention,”

Raitt said.

Bonnie Raitt, Hubert Sumlin, Como Mayor Judy Sumner.Very Happy and emotional reunion of sorts, Dick Waterman and Bonnie Raitt, back in Como, Mississippi to honor their old friend Mississippi Fred McDowell.Bonnie Raitt and Hubert Sumlin at the Mississippi Fred McDowell Blues Marker 05/07/2009Dick Waterman - Rev. John Wilkins - Bonnie Raitt  05/07/2009The Mississippi Blues Trail, created by the Mississippi Blues Commission, is a project to place interpretive markers at notable historical blues sites throughout Mississippi. The trail extends from southern Mississippi and winds its way to Memphis, Tennessee. In Como is one such marker honoring the late "Mississippi Fred" McDowell, renowned for his bottle-neck style of playing the guitar and for his soulful singing of "Highway 61" and other blues classics. On Thursday, May 7, 2009 , a handsome Blues Marker was installed on Como's Main Street median across from Como City Hall.Dick Waterman and Bonnie RaittRev. John Wilkins, Alex Thomas, Bonnie Raitt, Hubert SumlinMelody CummingsMorris CummingsRL BoyceRicky StevensRev, John Wilkins / Bonnie RaittRev, John Wilkins / Bonnie RaittRev, John Wilkins / Bonnie RaittBonnie Raitt / Hubert SumlinDick WatermanNathaniel WarrenRL BoyceFred McDowell's familyBonnie Raitt and Fred McDowell's family.Fred's family presenting Bonnie Raitt with a home made basket and flowers.Basket of flowers presentation.Bonnie RaittDaddy MackBonnie and HubertBonnie, Hubert & Watermelon SlimBonnie and HubertBonnie and HubertRev. John Wilkins, Bonnie Raitt & Como Mayor Judy SumnerCinda & Dick WatermanCinda & Dick WatermanBlues MarkerBlackOak SlimDick Waterman / Ronnie WilliamsDick WatermanDick WatermanDick WatermanDick Waterman / Tony LaxTonyFred McDowell Marker"Mississippi" Fred McDowell  Blues Trail Marker - Rear"Mississippi" Fred McDowell  Blues Trail Marker - Rear"Mississippi" Fred McDowell  Blues Trail Marker - RearComo Mississippi Water TowerMississippi Fred McDowell's grave in Panola County, Mississippi (outside Como)Mississippi Fred McDowell's head stone in Hammond Hill Missionary Baptist Church Cemetary, Como, Ms.Back of Mississippi Fred McDowell's head stone.Lyrics to his best known song, also covered by the Rolling Stones.Mississippi Fred McDowell's head stone in Hammond Hill Missionary Baptist Church Cemetary, Como, Ms.This is a marker that has been up several years in Fred McDowell's hometown of Rossville, Tn. There is a discrepancy on the date of his birth and death between this marker and his grave stone which was purchased in 1994 by a donation from Bonnie Raitt. I think a trip to the court house may be in order to clear this up but I believe the information on the grave stone is most correct. His original grave stone is currently at the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, Ms.

Photo’s © by Tony Lax

Eventually, there will be 150 Blues Trail Markers throughout Mississippi and in states connected with the blues from Mississippi. The first three blues trail markers were unveiled in 2006 in Holly Ridge, Greenville and Greenwood. The first Mississippi Blues Trail marker to be placed out of state was done so today at Third and Beale.

Shows Mississippi blues singer, Fred Mc Dowell, singing and talking about his blues. Includes scenes of the area which helped to shape his country blues.
Blues Maker – by Univ Of Mississippi – Published 1969

For WKNO News, I’m Candice Ludlow in Como, Mississippi. © Copyright 2009, WKNO


Source: © Copyright WKNO 91.1FM

Mississippi Fred McDowell

Como, Mississippi
Como, Mississippi

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.

While commonly lumped together with ‘Delta Blues singers,’ McDowell actually may be considered the first of the bluesmen from the ‘North Mississippi’ region – parallel to, but somewhat east of the Delta region – to achieve widespread recognition for his work. A version of the state’s signature musical form somewhat closer in structure to its African roots (often eschewing the chord change for the hypnotic effect of the droning, single chord vamp), the North Mississippi style (or at least its aesthetic) may be heard to have been carried on in the music of such figures as Junior Kimbrough and R. L. Burnside; as well as the jam band The North Mississippi Allstars, while serving as the original impetus behind creation of the Fat Possum record label out of Oxford, Mississippi.

The 1950s brought a rising interest in blues music and folk music in the United States, and McDowell was brought to wider public attention, beginning when he was discovered and recorded in 1959 by Alan Lomax and Shirley Collins.[1] McDowell’s recordings were popular, and he performed often at festivals and clubs. McDowell continued to perform blues in the North Mississippi blues style much as he had for decades, but he sometimes performed on electric guitar rather than acoustic. While he famously declared “I do not play no rock and roll,” McDowell was not averse to associating with many younger rock musicians: He coached Bonnie Raitt on slide guitar technique, and was reportedly flattered by The Rolling Stones’ rather straightforward, authentic version of his “You Gotta Move” on their 1971 Sticky Fingers album.

McDowell’s 1969 album I Do Not Play No Rock ‘N’ Roll was his first featuring electric guitar. It features parts of an interview in which he discusses the origins of the blues and the nature of love. (This interview was sampled and mixed into a song, also titled “I Do Not Play No Rock ‘N’ Roll” by Dangerman in 1999.) McDowell’s final album, Live in New York (Oblivion Records), was a concert performance from November 1971 at the Village Gaslight, Greenwich Village, New York.

Mississippi Fred McDowell's grave in Panola County, Mississippi (outside Como)
Mississippi Fred McDowell’s grave in Panola County, Mississippi (outside Como)

McDowell died of cancer in 1972, and was buried at Hammond Hill Baptist Church, between Como and Senatobia. On August 6, 1993 a memorial was placed on his grave site by the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund. The ceremony was presided over by Dick Waterman, and the memorial with McDowell’s portrait upon it was paid for by Bonnie Raitt, Dick Waterman (agent)and Chris Strachwitz (Arhoolie Records). The memorial stone was a replacement for an inaccurate and damaged marker (McDowell’s name was misspelled) and the original stone was subsequently donated by McDowell’s family to the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, Mississippi.


Source: © Copyright Wikipedia

Singer Bonnie Raitt to Attend Como Blues Trail Celebration

by Martha F. T. Garrison

Thursday, May 7 will be a very special day in Como. That’s when the town will become an official destination on the Mississippi Blues Trail. In an afternoon ceremony starting at 2, on the median of Como’s Main Street across from City Hall, a handsome blues marker honoring the late Mississippi Fred McDowell will be unveiled. Singer Bonnie Raitt, who credits Fred McDowell as having exerted a major influence upon her music, is one of the guests who’ll travel to McDowell’s hometown for this ceremony. After the unveiling, guests can stroll a short way down Main Street to hear live music and enjoy refreshments in the town’s public library and its adjacent Memorial Garden.

Features of the 2 p.m. unveiling ceremony on the median include performances by a group of 11th and 12th graders, who will sing McDowell songs. These young members of a jazz stage band and a jazz choir will travel to Como from their Columbus, MS boarding school, the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science. These bright young people hail from various towns all over the state. Additionally, the “Como Mamas” group will sing several gospel selections. Representatives from two Como-area churches – Hunter’s Chapel, where McDowell often attended and sang, and Hammond Hill Baptist, where he is buried – will say the invocation and the benediction. Several of the late musician’s relatives and friends will be introduced at the Ceremony.

Following the unveiling ceremony, the reception in the public library and Garden will offer guests a chance to meet McDowell’s kinfolk and hear live music by the following performers: Nathaniel Warren of Texas, who’ll play and sing several McDowell numbers; R. L. Boyce & the Como Breakdown, a well-known bluesy band; and singer Mary Ann “Action” Jackson. Organizers of the concert and reception are Como’s librarian Melba Major, Como resident Beverly Findley, and several other volunteers. The reception and concert are funded by the library and the Como Civic Club. Margaret Logan, Jo Anne Billingsley, and various other members of the Como Garden Club will create the fresh flower arrangements to decorate both the library and the Garden.

McDowell’s blues marker will permanently grace Como’s Main Street median, and it will have information about him on one side, and a map of the entire Mississippi Blues Trail on its other side. The Chairwoman of the Como Historic Preservation Commission, Meg Bartlett, assisted by her fellow Commissioners, worked extensively with the Mississippi Development Authority in preparing for the placement and unveiling of the marker.

Noted blues expert, Professor Scott Barretta, host of the Mississippi Public Radio blues-music program, Highway 61, describes McDowell as follows: “Mississippi Fred McDowell is widely viewed by blues aficionados as the most talented artist of his generation to be “discovered” during the blues revival of the late ’50s and ’60s. McDowell moved to Como, Mississippi around 1940, and performed widely around the region, influencing local bluesmen, including R.L. Burnside. In the wake of his discovery by folklorist Alan Lomax in 1959, McDowell began performing on the festival and coffeehouse circuits including the Newport Folk Festival in 1964. McDowell’s slide guitar playing had already influenced young white artists, notably Bonnie Raitt, and in 1971 the Rolling Stones covered McDowell’s version of the gospel standard “You’ve Got to Move” on their album ‘Sticky Fingers.’ “

As musicians from all over the world know, Mississippi is synonymous with blues. “The repertoire of any blues or rock band is full of songs, guitar licks, and vocal inflections borrowed from Mississippi bluesmen…,” says a Blues Trail publication. No matter where you go in this state, you are never far from the home, birthplace, or burial ground of some famous blues artist. Besides Como, other Mississippi locations which are, or soon will be, on the Mississippi Blues Trail map include Walls (Memphis Minnie), Berclair (B.B. King), McComb (Bo Diddley), Holly Springs (R. L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough), Meridian (Jimmy Rodgers), and Vicksburg (the Red Tops). Many other Mississippi communities will have markers honoring such blues greats as Jelly Roll Morton, Pine Top Perkins, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Son House, and Robert Johnson. (For more information about the Mississippi Blues Trail, visit www.msbluestrail.org.)

In case of rain on May 7, the Como festivities will take place at 211 Main. The Como Historic Preservation Commission extends a cordial invitation to all – and especially to Mississippians, Memphians, and other Mid-Southerners – to come to Como to pay tribute to Mississippi Fred McDowell, and to celebrate this region’s rich musical heritage. To find out more about the Como celebration, call (662) 526-5283.

Blues Trail markers and the entire Blues Trail project are made possible by funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Mississippi Department of Transportation, the Federal Highway Administration, the Mississippi Development Authority/Tourism Division, and local contributions. Como’s marker honoring Fred McDowell received substantial local funding from the Panola Partnership, Inc., located in Batesville.


Info:
Mississippi Blues Trail Markers
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Bonnie Raitt: Red, hot and blues

on September 24, 2006 No comments
By Cori Bolger (Special to the ClarionLedger.com)

In the black and white photo, Bonnie Raitt stands alone by a pond, her hands stuffed casually into the pockets of her trench coat. She smiles slightly for the camera, her face framed by waves of long hair.
At the time, nothing in particular stood out in the Parisian scene, documented by Dick Waterman in the fall of 1970.

Yet, the photo offers a rare glimpse of Raitt at 20 years old, a year before she began a professional music career that would, in time, propel her to stardom. “People who remember Bonnie like that (photo), because she’s so young and it’s a very different photo of the Bonnie Raitt they know from recent fame,” Waterman said.

Waterman, a blues photographer, keeps in his Oxford home dozens of candid photos he shot of Raitt. They span several decades, from the start of their friendship in 1968 through the years he acted as her manager. “She’d be a professor in an English department right now if it wasn’t for Dick,” said legendary Memphis producer Jim Dickinson with a chuckle.

Bonnie Raitt and Keb’ Mo’ – Memphis Botanic Gardens, Memphis, TN – 9/29/2006 © Dick Waterman

The nine-time Grammy Award winner and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee will perform with Keb’ Mo’ at Thalia Mara Hall on Tuesday. While many fans know Raitt as an American musical tour de force, Waterman simply knows her as his one-time girlfriend and still close friend, Bonnie.

“My relationship with Bonnie is cordial and tight,” Waterman said. They met through a mutual friend when she was 18 and attending Radcliff at Harvard University. She was already deeply immersed in folk and blues music. “She came over and then we started to hang out together and a couple of months later, I moved to Philadelphia (Pa.) and she moved with me,” Waterman said.

In addition to her talent on guitar, Raitt’s Quaker background, Waterman said, “made her predisposed to like (blues) music before she was ever surrounded by it. “She was politically receptive to it. It’s not like she suddenly looked around and said ‘I want to do this.’ ” In Waterman’s company, Raitt found herself surrounded by blues giants from Muddy Waters to John Lee Hooker and Son House.

“They were always eager to pass it on,” said Dickinson, referring to their knowledge. “They were pleased enough when it was a boy, but imagine what it was like for this 19-year-old girl from Harvard to pick up a bottle-neck guitar and play the Catfish Blues! It opened a lot of doors for her.” Even Raitt has again and again acknowledged the legends’ influence on her style.

Dick Waterman and Bonnie Raitt – Memphis Botanic Garden 2006 © Cinda Waterman

“I’m certain that it was an incredible gift for me to not only be friends with some of the greatest blues people who’ve ever lived, but to learn how they played, how they sang, how they lived their lives, ran their marriages and talked to their kids,” Raitt said on her official Web site. “I was especially lucky as so many of them are no longer with us.”

Raitt took a special liking to legendary bluesman Mississippi Fred McDowell and began opening his shows at clubs around the Northeast. It wasn’t long before record labels began catching wind of Raitt’s talent. “As soon as Warner Brothers expressed an interest in her, she knew that’s where she wanted to be,” Waterman said.

Raitt kept her self-titled debut album blues-heavy, but began to move into a more contemporary folk rock sound soon after. During the next seven years, she would record six more albums, with Waterman manning the helm of her schedule. “I found her dates and things like that,” Waterman said. “We always made sure she could do benefits and play on other people’s albums.” After managing the careers of Raitt and many other performers, Waterman retired to Oxford in 1986 and left his business relationship with Raitt behind.

By that time, Raitt had had notable commercial success, but it wasn’t until years later, when she signed with Capitol Records that she achieved new levels of critical acclaim and popularity. Fan-favorite singles such as Something to Talk About, I Can’t Make You Love Me and Love Sneakin’ Up on You only helped Raitt’s sound evolve into the pop-rock genre it fits today.

“Largely due to the fact that she’s female, she’s been able to transcend the genre and get across to the pop music community,” Dickinson said. “Believe me, it’s not easy. Few people have ever done that. That separates the men from the boys, so to speak.” Still, the shift Raitt made from gritty blues to a more mainstream sound never affected her relationship with her fan base or the longevity of her career, much like that of James Taylor or Paul Simon, Waterman said. “She’s carried those fans with her,” Waterman said.

Raitt also has remained true to her roots by working with various blues artists and inviting some of them to open tour dates or share the spotlight with her. “As you get bigger, you develop an entourage, and layers of people between you and the public,” Waterman said. “Well, Bonnie has remained … constant and consistent. Of all the intentions and goals and promises a musician makes earlier on, she is one of few who has remained true.”


Source: © Copyright The Clarion Ledger Archives

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Q&A: Bonnie Raitt

on May 28, 1998 No comments
By David Wild
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OF THE COUNTLESS ARTISTS WHO OWE A DEBT TO THE BLUES, no one has repaid that debt with more amazing grace than Bonnie Raitt; she has consistently given credit where credit is due. That’s fitting, since the blues was a fundamental part of Raitt’s musical education. The blues spirit is still alive and well on Fundamental, Raitt’s latest album, an eclectic gem that follows a series of career-altering smashes produced by Don Was. Fundamental includes an authentic yet contemporary take on J.B. Lenoir and Willie Dixon’s “Round and Round,” as well as “Cure for Love,” a fantastic song from Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo and Louis Perez that Raitt delivers with undeniable blues power.

Has it been meaningful for you to give something back to the blues?

Oh, yeah, that’s probably what I consider to be my job in music: to focus attention on some of the people who often didn’t get the recognition. Then I discovered that those same artists also had crummy royalty rates. Blues artists deserve justice — royalty justice. They should be recorded again. The people that I idolize — Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and Howlin’ Wolf — only got better with age. They had more to say and more depth to say it from.

How did you first get the blues jones?

I didn’t learn country blues until I was about fourteen, when a lot of those blues artists got rediscovered and brought to the Newport Folk Festival. But like everyone else, I was a fan of Fats Domino and Little Richard and Ray Charles. I always like the original versions of rock & roll. I never thought of myself in the tradition of my dad’s [Broadway star John Raitt] music. My music is the music of the age group I grew up in, and that’s early rock & roll and folk music.

What was it like when you actually started to meet some of these blues greats?

If someone had told me at fourteen — when I was slaving away trying to figure out how to play bottleneck up in my room here on Mulholland Drive, in L.A. — that I was going to eventually hang with and become close friends with Mississippi Fred McDowell, I wouldn’t have believed it.

I had entry to them because the man who managed them and booked them, Dick Waterman, was a good friend of mine. It was an unbelievable education. It was a great life experience, in terms of how they dealt with love and how they lived their lives. I was, like, twenty, and I just wanted to hang with them. I would try to keep up with them drinking, and I hadn’t really learned how to drink yet. I wanted to be authentic right away.

Having seen so many greats die off over the years, do you still see the blues as healthy and relevant?

I think it’s more vibrant now than it ever was. I’m just sorry so many of the great originals of this music didn’t live to see it, or even the tremendous upsurge that happened around the late Sixties. And then the white blues artists from England and people like Janis Joplin kind of eclipsed all the black artists. I mean, look at Etta James, who should be a god for the American public now. She’s just the baddest thing that walks. Yet these blues artists do not get the money or attention they deserve. Case in point: Every year when they do the Rhythm & Blues Awards, I appreciate the exposure Late Night and The Tonight Show give us, letting us come on. But if I don’t come — even with The Arsenio Hall Show — they generally won’t put these people on. You have to have a “current headliner” appearing with the “legendary traditional artists.” They’d be great without me.

Is your connection to the blues any different now that you’re in a happier time of your life?

Why do you think I am happier now? Happiness doesn’t have anything to do with Grammys or whether you’re married. It doesn’t mean you weren’t in love before. I don’t know anybody that’s happy all the time. I’m a lot more evolved and wise at forty-eight than I was in my twenties. But I’m still as tortured as anybody by the things that torture me. Usually the space between my ears is the one that gives me the most problems.

My external circumstances are more complicated now than they were before I had commercial success. Does rock-star whining give them a reason to sing the blues? I suppose not. But the blues come from such a deeper place and come from being mistreated and not heard. In that sense, I’m a lot better off than people singing about being exploited. But my personal life and my relationship with my family are as equally problematic as everybody. I’m the first to say that when I heard Koko Taylor sing the blues and I hear Eric Clapton sing the blues, it seems like Koko Taylor is going to have a lot more authenticity. Relative to her friends, she’s probably doing a lot better than someone who’s living in a shack. So I don’t associate the blues with income.


Source: © Copyright Rolling Stone

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