Born in Rossville, Tennessee, in 1904, Fred McDowell eventually settled in Mississippi in 1940. In his younger days, McDowell played for tips on the streets of Memphis, but decided that life on the road wasn’t for him and became a farmer. During the week he tended the farm and on the weekends he played house parties and fish fries.

He did not record until 1959 when folklorist Alan Lomax found him and recorded him for the American Folk Music series on Atlantic Records. In 1964, Chris Strachwitz of Arhoolie records hunted down McDowell and recorded a two volume series which helped propel him into the radar of the Folk revivalists.

During this period McDowell performed at coffee houses and the infamous Newport Folk Festival. The Rolling Stones invited him to Europe to play. The Stones reportedly bought McDowell a silver lamé suit that he wore back home and was eventually buried in.


He first learned guitar from an uncle who used a hollowed-out bone for a slide. McDowell was by all accounts a gracious man who freely shared his knowledge of blues and the guitar. He even set up a foundation before he died, using money from his record sales to buy instruments for underprivileged children in Northern Mississippi.

Song: ‘Goin’ Down to the River’