He didn’t own a guitar until he was 37 years old.
Fred McDowell was a farmer. He had been a farmer for most of his adult life — sharecropping and working the fields in Como, Mississippi, about forty miles south of Memphis, where he’d settled in 1940 or 1941. He played music at local dances and picnics for no money to speak of, using whatever slide material was available: first a pocket knife, then a slide made from a hollowed-out beef rib bone.
In September 1959, folklore researcher Alan Lomax and Shirley Collins were working in northern Mississippi making field recordings of rural blues for the folk revival’s archival program. One evening, as they recorded Lonnie and Ed Young playing fife and drum music in a clearing, a middle-aged farmer walked out of the darkness carrying a guitar. They invited him to play. They recorded him on his porch over the next few evenings.
Those field recordings — made when McDowell was somewhere between 53 and 55 years old, on his own front porch, on a tape recorder set up by folklore researchers who had gone looking for something else — eventually led to concert performances, record contracts, international tours, and a place in the history of American music that nobody had foreseen when he walked out of the dark carrying that guitar.
“I do not play no rock and roll,” he said, famously. He meant it.
The Rolling Stones covered “You Gotta Move” on Sticky Fingers. Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood both cite his slide technique as a primary influence. Bonnie Raitt learned slide guitar from him directly. Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys absorbed his approach. He was flattered by all of it. He still didn’t play rock and roll.
This is the gear story of a man who first used a pocket knife as a slide, eventually adopted the glass bottle, never fully understood why the outside world cared so much about what he’d always done in Como, Mississippi — and kept playing the straight, natural blues until cancer took him in 1972.
Background: Rossville, Como, and the Porch That Changed Everything
Fred McDowell was born in 1904 in Rossville, Tennessee — he later adopted the “Mississippi” prefix for his name because, as he said, he thought it sounded good. He met Charley Patton as a young man, describing Patton as “a loose mule runnin’ around through the world” — an affectionate characterisation of the most celebrated Delta bluesman of the era. The connection confirms McDowell’s position within the direct line of Delta blues tradition, even if his specific style — which researchers classify as “hill country blues” rather than pure Delta blues — had its own distinctive character.
He moved to Memphis in 1926, working various jobs and playing music for tips. By 1940, he had settled in Como, Panola County, Mississippi — a community that would become associated with the specific tradition of North Mississippi hill country blues, distinct from both the Delta blues of Clarksdale and the Piedmont tradition of the East Coast.
He didn’t own a guitar until he was 37 years old. This biographical detail is confirmed consistently across sources and puts his entire playing development in a specific context: he learned and practiced on borrowed instruments, on whatever was available, in the agricultural context of farming life in rural Mississippi. The music was always secondary to the work; the work came first because the work meant survival.
The Alan Lomax discovery in 1959 — one of the folk revival’s most significant field recording encounters — produced recordings that documented a direct connection to the Charley Patton/Robert Johnson-era Delta blues tradition. The tracks Lomax and Collins captured on that porch in Como were released and drew enough attention that McDowell gradually transitioned from part-time local musician to professional recording artist and touring performer.
His transition to electric guitar in the 1960s — which the guitar-list.com entry notes made him “probably the first original delta or country blues musician to do so” — was a practical adaptation to the changing performance contexts he encountered as his career developed. Concert halls required amplification. He adapted without abandoning his core musical approach.
He continued performing into the early 1970s, despite being diagnosed with cancer. He died July 3, 1972, in Memphis, Tennessee, at age 68. He is buried at Hammond Hill M.B. Church between Como and Senatobia, Mississippi.
The Rolling Stones recorded “You Gotta Move” in 1971. It appeared on Sticky Fingers. McDowell was reportedly flattered. He still didn’t play rock and roll. He played just the straight, natural blues, right up to the end.
Tone note: “I do not play no rock and roll.” He said this not as an insult to rock and roll but as a specific identification of his musical identity. The Rolling Stones covered him. Keith Richards cites him. He remained entirely himself throughout the recognition that followed his rediscovery. That kind of self-knowledge — the ability to receive external validation without being altered by it — is rarer than any slide technique.
The Rig: Mississippi Fred McDowell’s Guitars, Amps & Gear
Guitars: From Borrowed Instruments to Resonator to Electric
The Early Period — Borrowed Instruments and Available Slides
McDowell’s early guitar playing was done on borrowed or rented instruments — he didn’t own his own guitar until his late thirties. This practical reality shaped his approach to the instrument: he couldn’t afford to be precious about equipment because the equipment was never really his. What he could control was the technique, which he developed on whatever was available.
The slide progression from his earliest years documents both ingenuity and material limitation:
- Pocket knife: His first slide — a standard pocket knife held against the strings to produce the sliding pitch effect. The knife blade’s metal edge created a rough, slightly harsh slide tone different from glass or polished bone
- Hollowed beef rib bone: He developed this slide from a beef rib bone, hollowed to fit over his finger. “He was born in 1906 in Rossville, Tennessee, and was playing the guitar by the age of 14 with a slide hollowed out of a steer bone” (confirmed across multiple sources). The bone slide’s warmer, slightly softer acoustic character compared to glass or metal produced a specific tonal quality that some players prefer even today
- Glass slide (final choice): He eventually switched to a glass slide “for its clearer sound.” The glass’s smooth surface allowed cleaner, faster glissando movement than the bone, and its acoustic properties produced a brighter, more defined slide tone. He wore it on his ring finger
Tone note: Pocket knife → beef rib bone → glass slide. That’s a slide material progression dictated entirely by availability and eventually by aesthetic preference. He discovered the clearer sound of glass through experimentation with whatever he could find. The best slide for the job was eventually a piece of broken glass bottle — one of the most available materials in rural Mississippi.
The National Resonator Guitar — Primary Acoustic Instrument
Like Son House and several other Delta blues masters in this series, McDowell’s primary acoustic instrument was a National resonator guitar. The guitar-list.com documentation confirms: “McDowell initially played the recognizable resonator guitar.” The resonator’s acoustic volume advantage was the same practical consideration that drove Son House’s choice — performing at local dances and picnics without amplification required an instrument loud enough to be heard over the crowd.
His National resonator provided the specific tonal character audible in his earlier recordings: the metallic brightness of the single-cone resonator, the snapping attack of the open-tuning slide, the way the steel body emphasised the aggressive picking attack that characterised his style.
The allaboutbluesmusic.com assessment captured his style’s contrast with other resonator players: “In contrast to the overpowering bottleneck style of Elmore James, Fred’s lyrical guitar would talk softly, shout with anger, then weep or laugh with the intimate nuances of a friend telling a story.” The resonator in McDowell’s hands produced a wider dynamic range than many other Delta slide players — the same instrument capable of extraordinary delicacy and of forceful percussive attack.
Electric Guitar — The Later Period
Beginning with his recording and touring work in the 1960s, McDowell adopted the electric guitar — and is documented as “probably the first original delta or country blues musician to do so” in the guitar-list.com assessment. This adoption was pragmatic: concert halls and larger venues required electric amplification that an acoustic National resonator, however loud for its era, could not provide.
He used standard solid-body or semi-hollow electric guitars in his later period — the specific models are not consistently documented across available sources, but photographs show him with a Fender Stratocaster and similar standard electric instruments in his later career. His technique translated effectively to the electric context: the glass slide on the ring finger, the open tuning, the call-and-response between vocal and guitar, the driving rhythmic bass — all of these worked on the electric guitar as they had on the resonator.
The electric guitar’s natural sustain — its ability to hold a note longer than the acoustic resonator — actually suited his slide technique in some ways, allowing the glass slide to produce longer, more singing notes that could sustain and develop more fully than the acoustic resonator’s faster decay allowed.
Complete Guitar List
- Various borrowed/rented acoustic guitars (early career) — Playing from approximately age 14; no owned guitar until age 37; whatever was available
- National resonator guitar (primary acoustic) — Primary instrument from when he began performing more seriously; “the recognizable resonator guitar” confirmed in documentation; single-cone steel body
- Electric guitar (various, 1960s onward) — Adopted for concert performance after Lomax rediscovery; Fender Stratocaster and similar documented in photographs; probably the first original delta/country blues musician to adopt electric
Amps: Modest and Functional
McDowell’s amplifier use began with his adoption of electric guitar in the 1960s. He didn’t seek boutique vintage amplifiers or elaborate rig configurations; he used whatever clean, functional amplification his performance context required. He was not an equipment-obsessed guitarist by temperament or by history — he had played without amplification for most of his career and approached electric amplification as a functional necessity rather than a tonal destination.
Standard combo amplifiers — Fender-style clean platforms suited to the acoustic-derived character of his electric slide playing — would have been consistent with his documented performance setups. The goal was audible volume rather than specific tonal character from the amp itself; his tone came from the glass slide on the National or electric guitar’s strings, not from amplifier distortion.
No specific amp models are consistently documented in primary sources for McDowell, which is itself informative: the amps were not the story. The guitar, the slide, and the hands were always the story.
Pedals: None
Guitar directly to amplifier. No effects. His sound required none and he sought none. “Just the straight, natural blues.”
Strings, Picks & Setup
Strings: Not documented in specific commercial detail. For open-tuning slide playing on a resonator, medium-to-heavy strings are standard — more string mass produces better slide tone and helps maintain tuning stability at the higher action required for slide playing.
The Slide: Glass slide on the ring finger — the settled choice after the progression from pocket knife through beef rib bone. Glass produces a clearer, brighter tone than bone and a smoother, warmer tone than metal, suiting the lyrical, vocal quality of his slide work.
The Right-Hand Technique: McDowell’s right-hand technique combined a driving bass pattern (thumb on lower strings) with the call-and-response melodic elements on upper strings. Know Your Instrument documented: “Time that breathes — he pushes and relaxes the beat without losing the dance pulse.” The rhythmic flexibility — pushing ahead of the beat for tension, relaxing behind it for resolution — is a characteristic of the hill country blues groove that is distinct from the more rigidly metered approach of some other Delta players.
He also used an aggressive string snap on bass strings, similar to Son House’s approach — the physical impact of the thumb popping the bass strings providing the rhythmic engine that made his music physically felt as well as heard.
Guitar setup: High action for slide playing on the resonator — strings far enough above the fretboard that the slide doesn’t contact the frets. This is the standard resonator slide setup, uncomfortable for conventional fretting but appropriate for slide work.
Tunings
Open E and Open A tunings are most consistently documented for McDowell, though he also used other open tunings consistent with the hill country blues tradition. The hill country blues style is built on open tunings that allow the one-chord or two-chord vamp that characterises the genre — not the full I-IV-V chord movement of standard Delta blues, but a more hypnotic, drone-based approach that stays on one or two chords for extended periods.
- Open E (E B E G# B E) — Primary tuning documented; the open strings produce an E major chord
- Open A (E A E A C# E) — Alternate tuning; a whole step below open E; used for specific songs and contexts
- Standard E (occasional) — For some material; his technique could function in standard tuning when required
The hill country blues drone approach — staying on the I chord for extended periods rather than moving through the I-IV-V changes of standard 12-bar blues — is the specific harmonic character that distinguishes McDowell’s style from most other players in this series. The open tuning drone allows the slide to produce continuous pitch movement over a static harmonic foundation, creating hypnotic intensity through repetition and microtonal variation rather than through harmonic progression.
Tone note: Hill country blues uses repetition as its primary musical tool. McDowell would stay on the same chord shape for two minutes, making microscopic variations in the slide position, the attack force, the timing of the phrase — and the result was hypnotic rather than monotonous. The repetition is not the absence of development; it is the development, happening at a level too subtle for casual listening but immediately felt by the body.
Playing Style & Tone Philosophy: The Vocal Guitar
Mississippi Fred McDowell’s playing has a quality that every serious analysis of his work identifies with the same word: vocal. His slide guitar “talks” — it moans, questions, snaps, and laughs in direct response to and conversation with the vocal line above it. Know Your Instrument documented this precisely: “His slide lines can moan, snap, and question in real time. The guitar is not a solo instrument bolted onto a song; it is the other half of the singer’s throat.”
The Call-and-Response Within One Body
The specific structure of McDowell’s playing is call-and-response between the voice and the guitar — but unlike the standard call-and-response blues form where vocal phrases and guitar phrases alternate in sequence, McDowell’s call-and-response occurs simultaneously and within single phrases. The voice calls, the guitar responds, the voice reacts to the guitar’s response — a loop of communication within a single performance.
“Call-and-response inside one body,” as Know Your Instrument described it, “creates a loop of tension and release.” This is the oldest structure in African American vocal music — the work song, the field holler, the spiritual — applied to the guitar as a conversational partner rather than as accompaniment.
Tone note: The guitar answers the singer; the singer reacts to the guitar. This is not coordination between two musicians but a form of self-dialogue that requires the performer to be simultaneously speaker and listener, simultaneously calling and responding. It’s a specific quality of musical consciousness that is not teachable in the conventional sense — it develops through years of playing for oneself, which McDowell had in abundance.
The Hill Country Blues Drone
McDowell’s hill country blues approach differs from standard Delta blues in its relationship to the 12-bar form. Where most Delta blues uses the I-IV-V chord progression to create harmonic movement through the 12 bars, hill country blues often stays on a single chord or two chords for extended periods, creating its tension through repetition and variation rather than harmonic movement.
Know Your Instrument: “Repetition with purpose — he repeats figures like an incantation, letting tiny variations carry emotion.” The “incantation” metaphor is exactly right: the repetition is deliberate and the variations within it are the musical content. Each repetition of the central figure is slightly different — in timing, in slide pressure, in the microtonal approach to the target pitch — and these differences carry emotional information that the listener receives as a cumulative impression rather than as a series of discrete events.
This approach is directly related to the African American work song and field holler tradition — music made in physical labor contexts where the rhythm of the song needed to match the rhythm of the work, and where the repetition was not mere formula but a tool for sustaining collective effort over time.
The Bonnie Raitt Connection
Bonnie Raitt learned slide guitar technique from McDowell directly — one of the more remarkable teacher-student relationships in American guitar history. Raitt, who would become one of the most celebrated slide guitarists in rock and pop, credited McDowell specifically for the technical foundation of her slide playing. Big Train and the Loco Motives confirmed: he “coached a young Bonnie Raitt to develop slide guitar techniques of her own.”
The McDowell → Raitt transmission is an important case of the pre-war blues tradition being carried into contemporary rock and pop through a direct personal teaching relationship rather than through records and imitation. Raitt absorbed the technique from the source.
The Rolling Stones and “You Gotta Move”
The Rolling Stones’ recording of “You Gotta Move” — appearing on Sticky Fingers (1971) — was a stripped-down, nearly acoustic version of McDowell’s most celebrated song. Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood both cite McDowell’s slide approach as a primary influence; the specific sound of their open-G slide playing can be traced to the McDowell tradition.
McDowell was reportedly flattered by the Rolling Stones’ version. He noted that while he appreciated their interest, they had played a somewhat simplified version of his arrangement — he remained the more technically complete version of his own music, as one would expect.
How to Sound Like Mississippi Fred McDowell: The Hill Country Blues Tone
McDowell’s tone is built on the same elements as Son House’s — resonator guitar, open tuning, glass slide — but with a different tonal character. Where House is aggressive and physical, McDowell is conversational and lyrical. The equipment is similar; the application is fundamentally different.
The Guitar
National resonator guitar for the acoustic period; standard electric (Stratocaster-style) for the electric period. The resonator produces the more authentic early McDowell character.
- National resonator (single-cone, steel body) — As with Son House; the steel body’s metallic character suits the hill country blues drone approach
- Fender Stratocaster (electric period) — His documented electric guitar choice; single-coil clarity through clean amp
- Any clean electric guitar through clean amp — For the post-1960s sound; the tone comes from the slide and the open tuning
The Slide
Glass slide on the ring finger. Not metal — glass. The clearer, slightly warmer character of glass suits the vocal, lyrical quality of his slide work better than the harder metallic character of a steel or brass slide. He switched from bone to glass specifically for the clearer sound; respect that aesthetic judgment.
The Tuning
| Tuning | Notes (low to high) | Character |
|---|---|---|
| Open E | E B E G# B E | Bright, forward; the primary McDowell tuning; open strings produce E major |
| Open A | E A E A C# E | Slightly warmer than Open E; one step lower; same fingering positions, different pitch |
High action setup — essential for clean slide playing. Strings should not contact frets when the slide is positioned over them.
The Hill Country Drone Approach
In Open E tuning, find the central repeating figure of a McDowell song — the short, one- or two-bar melodic phrase that he returns to throughout. This is not the 12-bar blues form. It is a drone vamp: repeat the figure, make microscopic variations, allow the repetition to build cumulative intensity. Do not move to a IV chord on bar 5. Stay on the I chord. Let the repetition work.
The call-and-response: sing a phrase, answer it with the slide. Sing the next phrase, answer again. The answers should be genuine responses — different each time, reacting to what the vocal just said — rather than pre-composed licks inserted at regular intervals. Develop the ability to improvise melodic responses in real time while maintaining the drone bass pattern.
No Amp (Acoustic) or Clean Amp (Electric)
Acoustic: the resonator’s natural output, no amplification. Electric: clean amp, no effects, no distortion. The tone lives in the slide-on-string interaction and the open tuning’s natural resonance.
Budget vs Authentic
Budget:
- Guitar: Regal RC-2 or Gretsch G9200 steel-body resonator (acoustic); Squier Classic Vibe Stratocaster (electric)
- Slide: Dunlop 213 glass bottleneck, ring finger
- Tuning: Open E
- Amp: Fender Blues Junior (for electric period)
Authentic:
- Guitar: National Reso-Phonic resonator (acoustic); Fender American Stratocaster (electric)
- Slide: Heavy glass slide, ring finger
- Tuning: Open E or Open A
- High action setup on both instruments
Tone note: McDowell started with a pocket knife as a slide. Then a beef rib bone. Then glass. The progression from pocket knife to glass is a reminder that the specific slide material matters — he noticed the difference and changed accordingly. Start with glass and skip the pocket knife experimentation.
The Essential Technique
The drone bass and the vocal slide melody in conversation. Practice maintaining an open-E bass pattern with the thumb while the slide moves on the upper three strings in response to sung phrases. The bass is the metronome, the slide is the voice, the singing voice is the other half of the dialogue. Keep repeating the central figure until it becomes automatic, then begin varying it — in timing, in pressure, in the approach to the slide position. The variation is the music. The repetition is the foundation.
Most importantly: listen to McDowell’s recordings and feel what he’s doing emotionally before trying to replicate what he’s doing technically. “The emotional directness is real, yet it is guided by choices: where to leave space, how long to let a line fade, how hard to hit a bass note so the whole groove tilts” (Know Your Instrument). Learn the choices. The technique will follow the understanding.
Influence & Legacy: The Dirtiest Sound, The Cleanest Identity
Mississippi Fred McDowell’s legacy operates on two levels: his direct musical influence on specific players, and his categorical contribution to the hill country blues tradition that subsequent North Mississippi musicians have maintained.
Direct influences:
- Bonnie Raitt — Learned slide directly from McDowell; his specific technique is the foundation of her approach
- Keith Richards — Cites McDowell as a primary influence on his slide playing; “You Gotta Move” on Sticky Fingers is the most direct tribute
- Ronnie Wood — Similarly influenced; the Rolling Stones’ open-G slide vocabulary has McDowell ancestry
- Dan Auerbach (Black Keys) — The Black Keys’ stripped-down two-person blues, with Auerbach’s slide vocabulary, shows McDowell influence explicitly
- R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough — The subsequent North Mississippi hill country blues tradition that Burnside and Kimbrough developed builds directly on the foundation McDowell established; they are his most direct musical heirs
- Jack White — Beyond the White Stripes’ Son House tribute, White’s general approach to stripped-down blues also draws on the hill country tradition that McDowell represents
The R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough connection deserves emphasis: the hill country blues tradition — the drone-based, repetitive, hypnotic approach to the blues that McDowell exemplified — is the specific tradition that subsequently produced Burnside, Kimbrough, and the entire North Mississippi scene that became influential in the 1990s and 2000s. McDowell is the source of that stream.
His cultural moment — the 1959 Lomax field recording, the folk revival discovery, the connection with younger white musicians in the 1960s, the Rolling Stones cover — represents one of the cleanest cases of genuine cross-generational, cross-racial musical exchange in the folk revival period. McDowell was generous with his knowledge and technique, coaching young players who became famous while he remained relatively obscure. He was flattered rather than exploited — or at least he took it that way, and his own account of his reactions was always gracious.
He walked out of the dark into a clearing where folklore researchers were recording something else entirely. He had been playing his whole life. He was fifty-three years old. The music he played on that porch over the next few evenings connected directly to Charley Patton’s tradition and forward to Keith Richards and Bonnie Raitt and Dan Auerbach and everything after.
“Just the straight, natural blues.” Right to the end.
Tone note: Bandsintown documentation describes his style as “probably the dirtiest sounding guitarist ever.” That’s a significant claim given the competition in this series. “Dirty” in this context means raw, unprocessed, physically immediate — the sound of a glass slide on an open-tuned guitar with no effects, through a clean amp or no amp at all, played by a man who had been doing exactly this for forty years when the world finally found him. That kind of practiced directness has nowhere to hide behind effects or production. It’s all there in the sound.
On a porch in Como, Mississippi, in September 1959, a farmer played his guitar for two folklore researchers who had come to record something else. They recorded him anyway. What they captured on their tape recorder that evening was a direct line back to Charley Patton and Robert Johnson and Son House — the hill country blues tradition of North Mississippi, played by a man who had been making that music for forty years without anyone outside the county needing to know about it.
He played a glass slide on his ring finger, on a National resonator guitar. He started with a pocket knife; then a beef rib bone; then glass, because it was clearer. He tuned to open E. He played the same figure many times, with tiny variations, until the repetition became hypnotic. He called with his voice and answered with the slide. He was fifty-three years old and had not owned a guitar until he was thirty-seven.
Bonnie Raitt learned slide from him. The Rolling Stones covered “You Gotta Move.” Keith Richards cites him. Dan Auerbach absorbed him. He was flattered. He still didn’t play rock and roll.
“I do not play no rock and roll.” Just the straight, natural blues. Just that, for sixty-eight years, in Como, Mississippi, and then suddenly for the outside world too.
Just that.
If McDowell’s hill country blues drone approach — the open tuning, the hypnotic repetition, the vocal slide dialogue — has you exploring the North Mississippi tradition he helped establish, check out our complete guide to Son House’s guitars and gear — the Delta blues master who was one generation earlier and whose raw intensity McDowell absorbed into the hill country tradition.
And for the musician who carried McDowell’s slide influence into rock and pop and has been one of the most explicit champions of the pre-war blues tradition in contemporary music, don’t miss our breakdown of Bonnie Raitt’s complete gear guide — who learned slide directly from the man himself.
FAQ: Mississippi Fred McDowell Guitars & Gear
- What guitar did Mississippi Fred McDowell play?
- McDowell initially played National resonator guitars — the steel-bodied single-cone resonator that provided the acoustic volume necessary for outdoor performance at dances and picnics without amplification. Beginning in the 1960s, after his rediscovery by Alan Lomax and entry into the professional touring circuit, he adopted electric guitar — a Fender Stratocaster and similar instruments documented in photographs. He is noted as “probably the first original delta or country blues musician” to make this transition to electric. He did not own any guitar until he was 37 years old.
- What slide did Mississippi Fred McDowell use?
- A glass slide worn on his ring finger — chosen “for its clearer sound” after experimenting with earlier materials. His slide progression: pocket knife (first slide), hollowed beef rib bone (developed his own slide from a beef rib), then glass bottle neck (final settled choice). He wore the glass slide on his ring finger throughout his mature career.
- What tuning did Mississippi Fred McDowell use?
- Open E (E B E G# B E) was his primary documented tuning, giving an open E major chord when the strings are strummed without fretting. He also used Open A (E A E A C# E) — one step lower than Open E with the same harmonic relationships — for certain songs and performance contexts. His approach to these open tunings reflects the hill country blues tradition: using the open tuning’s drone quality for extended single-chord or two-chord vamps rather than the full I-IV-V chord movement of standard Delta blues.
- How did the Rolling Stones relate to Mississippi Fred McDowell?
- The Rolling Stones recorded McDowell’s “You Gotta Move” for their 1971 album Sticky Fingers. McDowell was reportedly flattered by the cover. Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood both cite his slide technique as a primary influence on their own open-G slide playing. McDowell was gracious about the attention while maintaining his own musical identity — he famously declared “I do not play no rock and roll” throughout the recognition that came from the Rolling Stones’ interest in his work.
- Did Mississippi Fred McDowell teach Bonnie Raitt?
- Yes — Raitt learned slide guitar technique directly from McDowell, and has cited him specifically as the foundational influence on her slide playing approach. Big Train and the Loco Motives confirmed he “coached a young Bonnie Raitt to develop slide guitar techniques of her own.” This direct teacher-student relationship is one of the most significant transmissions of pre-war blues technique into contemporary rock and pop — Raitt absorbed the hill country blues slide tradition from its source.
- When was Mississippi Fred McDowell discovered?
- He was recorded for the first time in September 1959, when folklore researcher Alan Lomax and Shirley Collins encountered him during a field recording trip through North Mississippi. They were recording fife and drum music in a clearing when McDowell walked up carrying a guitar; they invited him to play, and recorded him on his porch over the next few evenings. These field recordings, part of the folk revival’s archival program, led to commercial recording opportunities and an international performing career that lasted until cancer forced him to stop in 1971.
- How do I get Mississippi Fred McDowell’s guitar tone?
- Steel-body single-cone resonator guitar (National Reso-Phonic or Regal/Gretsch budget equivalents) set up with high action for slide playing; glass slide on the ring finger; Open E tuning (E B E G# B E). No amplification for the acoustic period; clean amp with no effects for the electric period. The technique: maintain an open-E bass drone with the thumb while the slide responds vocally to sung phrases in a call-and-response dialogue. Learn his hill country blues approach of staying on a single chord with tiny variations — the repetition is the music, not the absence of it. Start with “You Gotta Move” in Open E and work from there.
