This is McDowell’s last recording, made on 5 November 1971 at the long defunct Gaslight in Greenwich Village. McDowell’s bottleneck style is now legendary, but at the time he was barely-known as a musician. He had only recently gained enough financial security as a musician to give up his day job as a share-crop farmer. The Rolling Stones brought him some fame (if not fortune) by recording “You Gotta Move” on their Sticky Fingers LP, released in April of the same year.
AMG Review by Kathleen C. Fennessy:
His motto was “I do not play no rock & roll,” and Mississippi Fred McDowell proceeds to play the “straight and natural blues” throughout this live engagement in New York City. When introducing “Shake ‘Em on Down,” which opens the set, he adds the qualification, “but it kinda sounds like it.” Good point. “Shake ‘Em on Down” and “Baby Please Don’t Go,” which concludes it, really do rock even if they don’t quite qualify as rock & roll. As McDowell adds, before launching into the sad tale of “John Henry,” “Blues is a feeling, and I really feel what I’m playing.” Clearly, labels didn’t mean much to the Delta bluesman, although he does draw a distinction between the blues and spirituals (pronounced “specials” in his deep Southern accent) prior to performing “Mercy.” Blues, he notes, come from what he knows, whereas spirituals come from the heart. Honest and forthright to a fault, McDowell confesses that he hadn’t been intending to play “You Got to Move” (popularized by the Rolling Stones on Sticky Fingers), because he’s tired of it. But if it’s what the audience wants, he’ll be happy to give it to them. And that he does, gracing the enthusiastic crowd with a laid-back but far from perfunctory reading. McDowell certainly took his obligation to his fans seriously, and this entire performance is a fine example of that ethos (it certainly didn’t take much coaxing on their part to get him to play one more song, the aforementioned barnburner “Baby Please Don’t Go”).
Track List:
- Shake ‘Em on Down
- I’m Crazy About You Baby
- John Henry
- You Gotta Move
- Someday
- Mercy
- The Lovin’ Blues
- Goin’ to the River (Carry My Rocking Chair)
- Baby Please Don’t Go
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This concert was re-issued on CD in 1999 (out-of-print?) and has been uploaded by this blog. More on this recording can be found in the story behind Oblivion Records.