#Fred McDowell

[oblivionrecords]

Fred McDowell: The farmer who emerged from the woods and made a masterpiece

I thought it might be good for newbies to Mississippi Fred McDowell –like I was when I recorded “Live in New York”– to find out about where Fred came from, recording wise. This article in the UK webzine, Far Out, lays it out pretty well. You might want to dig deeper into folklorist Alan Lomax, but more importantly, you'll get a glimpse of the ambition that drove Fred from a Mississippi farm to his well deserved worldwide acclaim. -Fred Seibert.

By Tom Taylor @tomtaylorfo Far Out Magazine   Sat 18 November 2023 22:00, UK

Some blues players can get their guitars to tell a story; Fred McDowell could get his to sing an opera akin to a southern Les Mis. “With Fred McDowell, I just love the way he articulates the notes,” fellow blues guitarist Bill Orcutt explains. “I’m hardly unique in that, but there’s just something about that that I love.” He’s not alone in that love either; everyone from Keith Richards to Bonnie Raitt have cited him as a star that they have attempted to emulate.

However, the one element nobody could ever copy was the humble backstory that brought him to the world. Long before he earned the prefix of Mississippi and became a big attraction at juke joints, got swamped backstage at folk festivals, or had his track covered by The Rolling Stones, he was just strumming away to an audience of nearby wildlife on his porch after a long day at work. Occasionally, he’d find himself in a situation where someone might toss him some loose change, but any notion of fame seemed unfamiliar.

But his skills were profound all the same, and fate would drag him towards another American numen on his travels. Alan Lomax was a roving ethnomusicologist, which is a big word for a curious fellow with a portable recording device that could capture the nation’s true folk on the move. One day, during Lomax and Shirley Collins’ great Southern Journey expedition, they rocked up in Como, Mississippi. They were intent on capturing the music at a local dance and the Young brothers’ fife and drum ensemble.

It was 1959, and McDowell was a 54-year-old wondering what his legacy would be beyond the farm he kept. So, without much fanfare and no warning, he decided to pick up his guitar, weave his way through the local woods, and rock up at Lonnie Young’s porch, where the recording was said to be taking place. Lomax and Collins lent him their ears, hit record, and old McDowell began to play.

Half a century later, if you close your eyes while listening to the masterpiece now known as The Alan Lomax Recordings, you can almost see the overalled maestro on the creaking porch ahead of you, hear the rustle of the southern breeze through the lowering tupelo trees, and smell the dancehalls buffer in the air. Of course, some of that is due to the suggestion of the cover art on the Mississippi Records pressing, but what I’m trying to convey is the dogeared sincerity that renders this authentic tape so beguiling.

Even at the time, Lomax and Collins were so flummoxed by the humility and skill of this unknown farmer that they quickly whisked their tapes off to a blues label, and in his autumn years, McDowell became an internationally renowned star, typifying what was best about the blues when the revival movement had somewhat muddied the waters — he was the new (old) find that the kids were craving.

He would soon rub shoulders with the next generation, teaching Raitt how to play slide guitar, touring with the likes of Big Mama Thornton and John Lee Hooker, and embracing the flattery of being covered by rockers despite declaring himself that he did not play rock ‘n’ roll. He left the farm behind and enjoyed a good 13 years of fame until his death in 1972, aged 68, but his old porch was never truly that far from his artistic thoughts, so even beyond the masterful Lomax Recordings, he’s the bluesman who can capture the earthiness of the South with more verity than anyone.

[radiophd]

fred mcdowell -- waiting for my baby

[lostinmac]

Thelma (2024)

Dir. Josh Margolin

[musickickztoo]

Mississippi Fred McDowell *January 12, 1904

[cinelestial]

First look at the upcoming film THELMA directed by Josh Margolin

Cast includes June Squibb, Fred Hechinger, Richard Roundtree, Parker Posey, Clark Gregg, and Malcolm McDowell.

Releasing in theaters June 21st

[rastronomicals]

Mississippi Fred McDowell

[moviemosaics]

Thelma

directed by Josh Margolin, 2024

[moviesiveseenandwanttoremember]

Josh Margolin’s “Thelma” June 21, 2024.

[moorheadthanyoucanhandle]

AGE AGAINST THE MACHINE

Now in theaters:

Thelma--Played by June Squibb, the title character is a widow in her nineties, living on her own in a lovely house in Encino, California. She's intelligent and proudly self-reliant, but she nonetheless falls prey to a scam; somebody claiming to be her beloved grandson Danny (Fred Hechinger) calls up claiming to have had an accident and to need $10,000 fast.

Before she can reach her daughter (Parker Posey) or son-in-law (Clark Gregg), Thelma has mailed the money. She's informed that there's little the cops can do, and her family tells her to let it go. But she can't. The theft has threatened her sense of independence, and left her furious, both at the perpetrators and herself.

She goes to see her old friend Ben (Richard Roundtree), who lives in a nursing home. She no longer drives, so she asks Ben if she can borrow his rather snazzy scooter to follow up a lead she's found on the scammer. Though he's horrified at what she wants to do, soon the two of them are zipping along the sidewalks of L.A. in the scooter, Thelma at the handlebars.

The writer-director is Josh Margolin, whose real-life Grandma, really named Thelma, was really targeted by such a scam. Though the real Thelma didn't fall for it, you can understand Margolin's impulse to dramatize such an infuriating, odious plot.

There's a certain raggedness to the movie's middle stretch. Margolin seems so delighted with the image of Thelma and Ben riding to vengeance on a scooter that he may have sacrificed a certain amount of narrative logic to it; it's hard to imagine that they couldn't have contrived a more efficient way to get across town. And Thelma's daughter and son-in-law seem underdeveloped and caricatured, though Hechinger's Danny is endearing. When this goodhearted but coddled and aimless kid in his early twenties bemoans his lack of life skills, plenty of us in the audience can empathize.

But the center of the movie, of course, is June Squibb's performance as Thelma. Now 94, Squibb has been around show business since the '50s--she was in the original Broadway run of Gypsy!--and in TV and movies since the '80s and '90s. She made an impression with her role in About Schmidt (2002) and got an Oscar nomination as Bruce Dern's salty wife in 2013's Nebraska, but this is her first star part.

She handles it with great skill, careful to keep Thelma from getting too twinkly and adorable, and giving her a reflective side. She also has a fine rapport with her costars, especially Roundtree, whose last film this was (it's dedicated to him). His quiet, dignified Ben has, unlike Thelma, accepted his declined status. He insists he likes living in the home, and playing Daddy Warbucks in the production of Annie there.

His idea of aging gracefully is not being a bother or a worry to younger people. In the buddy-picture structure of the movie, this makes him the fretful Danny Glover or Martin Lawrence to Thelma's Mel Gibson or Will Smith; he's quite literally getting too old for this shit.

The comparison isn't strained. Margolin's most fertile source of comedy here comes from shooting and editing the film like any tense urban action thriller; Nick Chuba's driving musical score helps a lot with this. When Thelma has to climb a steep flight of stairs or stand up on a bed to reach something in a high place, it's treated much the same as, say, Tom Cruise's daring feats in a Mission: Impossible movie, and you realize that, in terms of courage and risk, there really isn't much difference.

[ifelllikeastar]

R.L. Burnside played the harmonica and dabbled with playing guitar at the age of 16 learned mostly from Mississippi Fred McDowell. He credited singing at church and fife-and-drum picnics as influences in his music, along with Muddy Waters, Lightnin' Hopkins, and John Lee Hooker as influences later on in life. R.L. had a powerful, expressive voice, that did not fail with old age but rather grew richer, and he played both electric and acoustic guitar, with and without a slide. He was the grandfather to Cedric Burnside.

R.L. Burnside died September 1, 2005 in Memphis, Tennessee at the age of 78.

[oblivionrecords]

For some reason, this 1975 biography of Tom Pomposello (here’s the Wikipedia version) was the only artist bio we ever did at Oblivion. (Maybe that’s because Tom commissioned it himself?!) Mostly we did flyers, which we didn’t even do for Blues from the Apple or the Joe Lee Wilson LP.

All that being said, guitarist and FOT (friend of Tom’s) Mike Bifulco did a fabulous job.

OBLIVION RECORDS

MEDIA

INFORMATION

BIOGRAPHY HONEST TOM POMPOSELLO

Thomas Anthony Pomposello (dubbed "Honest Tom" during an unsuccessful campaign for Receiver of Taxes in Huntington, Long Island) has been playing and listening to music, especially the blues, for most of his 26 years. Tom's major objective as a musician has been to absorb as much as possible of the authentic blues style by playing and studying with older bluesmen; and then to utilize this background in putting together his own band.

The turning point in Tom's career was his meeting and eventual apprenticeship with the late Mississippi Fred McDowell. Tom acted as Fred's occasional bass player during the period of 1971 through 1973, and eventually spent a short period with Fred at his home in Como, Mississippi. (Fred's last album, the Oblivion record LIVE IN NEW YORK, features Tom on bass and bottleneck guitar.) It was this friendship which provided the inspiration for Tom’s present musical endeavors.

In recent times, Pomposello has performed around New York, playing bass and bottleneck with such blues luminaries as Louisiana Red, Larry Johnson, Lefty Dizz and the late Charles Walker. Currently, he is fronting his own band--an ensemble which he characteristically describes in this manner: "Blues is the basic ingredient, you see. But I'm trying an approach that is a bit eclectic in regards to the music. A bit of rhythm & jump blues, bop, some traditional and country material, Chicago .. . ah, I guess you just gotta hear it." The musicians Tom has assembled include David Longworth on drums, Michael Altshuler on the electric guitar, Bruce Kapler on tenor saxophone and Kid Avanzini on the bass guitar. Tom divides his on-stage time (somewhat unevenly) between the bottleneck/dobro, electric mandolin, harmonica and vocals.

Besides gigging and rehearsing with the band, Tom remains active in other areas of the blues world. His record store, Kropotkin, stocks one of the best blues catalogs in the New York Metropolitan area. He hosts the Saturday afternoon radio show, Something Inside of Me, on WKCR.FM in NewYork City. He acts as contributing editor for Living Blues magazine of Chicago. He does production work for Oblivion Records.

But most importantly, he has just finished work on his first album, HONEST TOM POMPOSELLO, scheduled for an early-winter-1975 release. An active year of touring with the band will follow.

By Michael Bifulco

CONTACT: FRED SEIBERT////TELEPHONE IN NEW YORK CITY:              (212) 222.2485 OBLIVION RECORDS, Inc. Box X, Roslyn Heights, NY 11577

(More on Tom Pomposello and the origins of Oblivion here...)

[rolloroberson]

Shake ‘Em On Down - The Black Crowes

[randomrichards]

THELMA:

Angry grandma’s trip

Get money back from scammers

Grandson looks for her

[musickickztoo]

Mississippi Fred McDowell † July 3, 1972

[agentnico]

Thelma (2024) review

It was either this or Despicable Me 4. And I ain’t giving another penny to those dastardly minions!

Plot: Thelma Post is a 93-year-old grandmother who loses $10,000 to a con artist on the phone. With help from a friend and his motorized scooter, she soon embarks on a treacherous journey across Los Angeles to reclaim what was taken from her.

I am actually shocked that this is June Squibb’s FIRST lead role. The lady is a damn Academy Award winner for Christ’s sake, and yet it took her to reach her nineties to get top billing? Adds another layer to the saying “better late than ever”. Then again, if you look at the current President of the United States then age doesn’t matter, no matter how many times you forget what you’re talking about or fall down the stairs of an Air Force One plane. So good on Squibb for getting the lead in this film, and not only that, but she’s now essentially an action star too. Kind of. The movie consistently references Tom Cruise’s insane stunts that he does by himself, and I believe Squibb did all her own stunts in Thelma too, which involved walking, typing on a computer keyboard, riding a mobility scooter, going up the stairs, stepping over a lamp and knitting. Honestly it’s impressive stuff I tell ya.

Essentially this is The Beekeeper: Elderly Edition. Remember the Jason Statham action flick earlier this year where he played a beekeeper that goes on a revenge spree following his sweet landlord/friend committing suicide after being scammed out of $2 million by a phishing company. Naturally Statham was on glorious ass-kicking form and there was some thrilling and entertaining action set pieces. With Thelma it’s essentially the same thing, only instead of Statham it’s Squibb, so the process is a tad more slow with a more chill vibe. Look, straight away I should say I’m not the target audience here. This is very much for the type of crowd that went to see those Best Exotic Marigold Hotel films. They’re very sweet in nature, but are extremely melancholic and have that overly comforting factor where you do just want to afterwards go see your grandparents and give them the biggest hug. It helps that June Squibb is adorable in this film, as she has that old-school warmth to her, but also when she starts trying to save the day, you can’t help but want to root for her. Also all the scenes in her house were simply lovely. Think it was the mixture of the light yellow/orange lighting to the typical overly comfortable furniture with flowery designs and essentially a place that’s stuck in time so to speak. Again there’s that warmth to it that was utterly delightful.

The story itself was alright. Like it’s nothing special and I’d say in the middle it does meander a bit too much where I did find myself getting distracted, but overall it’s a very low stakes movie shot in high style that works. I really dug June Squibb’s interactions with her grandson played by Fred Hechinger, and their bond is the true core of the movie. It was the attention to the little details, like when the grandson’s parents are giving him crap about drinking and oversleeping, but when the grandson looks up at June Squibb she simply looks back at him lovingly with zero judgement and even gives a cheeky wink of assurance which was so sweet. I’ve unfortunately never got the chance to meet either of my grandparents as they had passed before I was born, so even though I haven’t had personal experience of this I still very much connected with the grandmother/grandson dynamic.

Thelma is a fun, impressively naturalistic and overwhelmingly earnest look at the idea of growth, both old and young, and the importance of family, and though it’s not a movie that breaks any new ground or will have me want to go out of my way to go see it again, I very much appreciated it’s innocent cosy nature. It’s a movie about a cool grandma - take it as you will.

Overall score: 6/10