Mississippi Fred McDowell - "Goin Down to the River"

Selected viewer comments from

http://www.youtube.com/comment_servlet?all_comments=1&v=9TyzAAwJnIw

Posted in 2007:

saustin151- Come on guys...is there ANYONE ALIVE who match this..tell me and I'll lay a path of gold bricks straight to their doorstep. Good GOD!!! This tears me down!!

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etheangel2220-This isnt a style that one can just learn

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toddallenhooper -This guy is the real deal, he's one of the founders of the blues. Anyone who claims to like blues and doesn't like this guy is foolin' themselves!

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jessupar- hey saustin, the only gourp or person i can really see still alive that can match him is B.B. King, then again... depends on your tastes really.
j
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essej1973- Wow, absolutely beautiful!

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saustin151 -Hey jessupar,

There is NO WAY to compare B.B. King to Fred McDowell. These are TWO COMPLETELY DIFFRENT styles of playing !! B.B. doesn't play slide, Fred's chords are basic Open D or G tunings and a "shake 'em down" rhythm..no way to compare! One is not better than the other,but Fred's style,to me, has more feeling,more intensity,more conviction.

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ThomasDeLello- Mississippi Fred was from Tennessee...!!! But he played in a Mississippi style, so the name still fits. Fred would say..." That's okay, I feel like I'm at home when I'm in Mississippi"

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JosephNScott- "Fred[...] played in a Mississippi style" Nah, he learned his Tennessee style in Tennessee and it didn't happen to be much different from what some Mississippi guitarists were doing and others weren't.

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JosephNScott -Blues music started out, about 1900, apparently mostly among young "black" men then, as Southern folk songs that were specifically about having "the blues." Then became popular among others (about 1910 on). South had large population of folks with African-derived melody habits taking European-influenced approaches to chords and playing.

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Abuckandabook- Wow, I feel like I just found another great musician to listen to..

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dw8910- Wonderful wonderful music that comes from the soul. Music that's not made for money but comes from the heart like it is meant to be!

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rabmunch- Is he not similar to John Lee Hooker? Hooker sings more of crime and sex. Interesting sound. What exactly is blues and why does it belong to America? What is it about America that gave birth to blues? Was it born in the South, and did it originate among the negro slaves?

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tubes304- yeah, it was born in the south. during the civil war, alot of confederate soldiers who died naturally left their guitars behind, and alot of the newly freed slaves found them. they mostly sang about some sort of loss, or mourn, which was basically all they new, they were just singin about their everyday lives, thus the blues was born!

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tubes304-o now with the slide, that was discovered by an old famous/rich black composer (WC Handy) who was waitin at a train station and heard an old negro playin for change. as he was playin he would drag the blade of his knife up and down the steel strings of his guitar. it was the weirdest music he'd ever heard, and this was a well known, well respected composer...

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tubes304- ...so, naturally, WC Handy went back to his "studio" and experimented with different kinds of materials to try and immitate this sound he described as
"water",he found metal, brass, glass, worked the best
and cut two songs using this technique and both were a hit, and nobody knows who that first black dude was at the station. a little history lesson for ya, thought I might share

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rabmunch- thanks. so it seems that Gospel tended to be more for the women (in church), and blues for the men. I guess the North never really had any music to call its own. Perhaps it was that business and industry filled the lives of almost everyone in the North. The south was, I hear, very different. Almost like an aristocracy.

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JosephNScott- "I guess the North never really had any music to call its own." It had great music, but it tended to be very European in style. Southerners, including makers of "hillbilly" music (for instance the banjo comes from Africa), benefited from widespread collisions of African and European sounds, which Northerners and everyone else noticed were uniquely American and interesting.

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rabmunch- But the themes of God & Salvation (gospel) on the one hand, and blues (suffering, wretchedness, poverty, ignorance) on the other brought forth the truly moving music of America. I do believe that commerce, industry, and the absence of slavery made the north very businesslike and prosaic. The south has had the only tragic writers too (like Faulkner, or Percy).

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JosephNScott- The great pop standards that pop and jazz singers and instrumentalists such as Nat "King" Cole, Billie Holiday, and Charlie Parker routinely recorded were normally written by Northerners. Northerners played an important role in the development of bebop, and of rock and roll (for instance Philadelphia had Jimmy Preston, Chris Powell, the Treniers, and Bill Haley all making rocking music as of about 1950).

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bluesmantevis- Hauntingly amazing vocals. Simply the best kind of music ever made (the delta blues). I wish I could have been around back then to learn more from these innovative musicians.

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johndoe500- The reason the "North had no music to call its own" was not because of industry, but rather because there were far more blacks in the South (due to slavery) than there were in the north, and the blacks were the ones who invented blues and gospel. Later, when they moved north in the early 1900s, they made Detroit blues and Chicago blues.

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Posted in 2008:

jovesheerwater- priceless thanx.

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CHICOLEO666-love it!!!

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spaceword- pure genius

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Patrick209- Wow, I never knew such powerful music existed.

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Johnny6666- This clip is available on the 'American Folk and Blues Festival' DVDs. Everyone should purchase all three volumes - as almost EVERY performance is of this quality (or, amazingly, even better)!

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SStockstill- how hauntingly enjoyable

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ldick1- If this doesn't bristle the hairs on the back of your neck you are dead inside.

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LazarusLonger-That's some serious down home blues right there. Fred got an incredible tone out of that archtop. ....an unusual guitar for that style.

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mranster- Beautiful, haunting, soul-restoring.

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emilyek1-Fred is so beautifully rudimentary.

Love him. Sings with more feeling than anyone, Son House included.

He's got some of the best breaks in any song ever. Don't get to hear one here, though.

Technically inferior to his contemporaries in so many ways but so much more haunting and magnificent to listen to.

Love Fred.

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electricinsect1- Truly remarkable! Thanks for the post.

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elboe805- so haunting... so pure... so blues.

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TomBandfield- Mesmerising. :-)

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joebonham1916 - Greatest delta blues player, in my humble opinion.

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grmadrummer - Very Serious Blues, Baby

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jeffdaweasel- Unbelievably awesome.

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zappascotland- Has to be one of the coolest songs i have ever heard. What a riff!

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handsomedevilRo - fred mcdowell looks a looks a lot like chuck berry. the better of the two as guitar playing goes is tough but i would side with mississippi fred.

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JonnyGrave- excellent sound quality too. some of these old blues clips are real scratchy, but the echo on this one is clear as a bell. great job and thanks so much for posting it!

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lenaspieltblues- I know a lot of Mississippi Fred McDowell Videos, this is the most beautiful (in my opinion). Look at the guitar that he plays, wonderful! Thanks a lot for posting ...

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jrobertson1974- anyone able to make out the last two verses?

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elvis334-
Lord I'm goin to down t louisianna baby
I beleave honey I'll chair my hoot
you know I'm goin down louisianna
I beleave i'll chair my hoot

lord my teethin brown
I declare da eyes da blue

Somethin like that :)
..Fred Rocks

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cocoangus50- one of the greatest pieces of music I've ever heard. From the soul, a classic

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henningvontreskow- The last lines include: "I'm going down in Louisiana, I believe I'll carry my load" and "Them teasing browns..." I cannot decipher the last few words. "Teasing brown" and "carry my load" were common phrases in Delta pre-war blues. Fred was really the last of the full-bore real acoustic blues. I believe that Alan Lomax discovered him in 1961 in a three- part Atlantic record series, "Roots of The Blues".

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LittleBrotherBlues-God I can't get tired of watching this one. SImple open D playing, simple things put together like a total master of the blues. He slays me with SOUL SOUL SOUL. I felt that down to the core! The reverb they added was great. Old 1940s Kay archtop sounds raspy and harsh, yet perfect.

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tommyau2006- I couldn't agree more. Wouldn't be the same if it wasn't raspy and harsh.

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RolloffDeBunk- Lord have mercy! Thank you YouTube!

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tommyau2006- it doesn't get much better than this. Thanks for posting

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paradisewaits9- Unbelievable soul--jaw dropping good

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MusicLova7- Incredible!!

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nuness20 - This is another of the all-time country blues greats. Thanks for uploading this.

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ojnabieoot- Is it just me, or is his guitar in Open F? I don't see a capo, so I'm wondering how the strings and neck are holding up. Granted, he might be using nonstandard strings, or something else that I'm just not familiar with.

Anyway, a beautiful song. The riff is somewhat unusual for Delta blues, but the sound is the music at its purest.

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theactivist7- what is the tuning?
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leftyjcw - Man this is SO GOOD! Open E.

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mandarian87- I saw a few people say it was open D but I am 100% positive that it is an open F tuning

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amcgee222 - It is definitely open F, in the vestapol, or open E chord shape.

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kiowa22- One of the finest moments in all Blues, I'd say.

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bluesman303- its really not about the key...once you understand his style you can jam out a McDowell rhythm for hours at any tuning, anywhere on the neck....as long as you have the heart to back it up

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theactivist7- how come none of his stuff is in print. I can't find any music books of his work.

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bootlegpreacher- neither could he

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iArsalan- In print? His music couldn't even be notated in conventional form. The "Blues Notes" are quarter tones not found in any European scale.
Besides if you want to play the blues, you don't copy what someone has already done because his blues are his own. You have to bring your self to the music and confront your own sorrows then you're playing and singing the blues.

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thrbrdrider- the man is a legend forever.

my humble homage to Mississippi Fred McDowell.

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jamiecmmarshall- fantastic, modern songs just don't hold as much soul

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bannork- Love the Delta blues, what a wonderful voice Fred had too, powerful and expressive.

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cedricleecason- Sang man!!!

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zombieman62- this guy is amazing. i found one of his records when i was rummaging around in a thrift store. perect condition. it's called "i do not play no rock n roll. i bought it based on the name of the artist and the album title.

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emilyek1- I love Fred but hate the ...uber-reverb and super hot treble that was mixed into every recording he did, especially since he didn't need it.

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Posted in 2009:

clay70- R U kiddin? The reverb and treble add the extra power to this masterpiece. This may be the greatest performance of all the original 1920s masters. They made comebacks in the 1960s after being found as virtual unknowns in the deep south by white blues enthusiasts. The others were: John Hurt, Skip James, Bukka White and of course Son House. Oh the talent that came from Mississippi!!!

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TennesseeShine- Don't forget Furry Lewis from Memphis!

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Patrick209- this is so raw, I must have had the song stuck in my head for a whole week

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sngldad- gas for .26 cents a gallon. wish then was now. cheap gas and good music.

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mi55coo-ok, but Fred has a unique style and many people try to play his kind of music but they're only scratching the surface. they copy what they hear but they can't copy the style and the style goes a long way back. Listen to the album "i don't play no rnroll" where he explains his way of playing.

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jbrad1211- I love that CD! I wish he could have recorded it as an acoustic session. I understand that he didn't go electric until this recording.

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LittleBrotherBlues- I never tire of seeing this performance. Beyond great! Open D tuning but yeah that's way tight. You know that guitar didn't last long. Ultra simple playing but masterfully well done. I like how he works the second string with the slide.

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happymoop89 - I only discovered this gem a couple of weeks ago, every song gives me goosebumps. This man is the blues

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pyramidion- Blues doesn't get any deeper than this. Thanks for putting this up.

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BARDEDWIREKISSES74- Got to be one of the best things on youtube!

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crisbonnell - this is the first thing i listen to on youtube god its beautiful not enough of his acoustic stuff is around though

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TheBluesMann- Great Man, Great Sound!

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GenerationGotSoul- This is the best video on YouTube. I watch this video practically twice a day and it never comes short of blowing my mind.

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checkraisedbywolves -he took alotta pride in his art

i have a song of his from "this ain't no rock n' roll" album entitled "i heard somebody calling me"......a few seconds into the song he says "take your time now,john", and you can hear the drummer slow down the pace

fred was a perfectionist,and that is what he produced-PERFECTION

i'll post it one of these days

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uardone- Am I the only one that cried the first time that heard this??

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3rdshiftfornow- I first heard Fred's music on a tape I checked out of the library shortly after the death of my father in 1999. I then ended up buying 6 different cds and this music really helped me deal with my dad's passing. Today I listen to a lot of different stuff, but it does'nt get more real than this !!!

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repitorio- Man! The only video I keep coming back to on Youtube and it still gives me goosebumps...

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distar10 - This is a little piece of the past to treasure forever!! We are soooo very lucky to have this clip. This is real down home blues, even tho' it is on an electric guitar. So enjoy and just let it touch your soul.

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cajun137- my fav blues song of all time

if it aint delta it aint the blues baby!!

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distar10 - He sure can play that geetar!!! Delta blues is the BEST! It's great that we have this venue; now more people can discover this great,soulful misic. And more importantly keep it alive. He and other blues greats can inspire other musicians to sing,play,feel the good ol' delta blues.

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LeFruFru - It's not delta blues, it's hill country blues, northern Mississippi drone blues.

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lindenhu- This man played live on a radio show that I hosted in 1970 in Houston. He was old then, so he must be gone by now. He was the nicest old guy you could ever meet. He had something like an airline guitar amp and possibly a sears electric guitar and he was so good. I'll never forget it.

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TheWayOuts-is he playing a Harmony guitar?
Somebody any idea of the key he's playing in?

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damflask303- It's a Kay guitar check the headstock at 0.46.

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chadisapunkrocker - Kay was a REAL cheap guitar back then. I think they sold them at Montgomery Wards or something. He makes it... well, you got ears...

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Broonzied- If you look hard enough there are a few films as good as this on the tube, but I've yet to find one better.

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BluesDuke - McDowell's signature riff (which he plays throughout this tune) is one of the coolest in the history of the blues.

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CharlesSchneiderfilm- Doesn't this just make you feel SO HAPPY TO ALIVE!!!!!!!!!

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pllugu - I am alive!!!!!
This give me goosebumps! This is BLUES !
Greetings from KOSOVA!♥
♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫

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duvaldallas- that made me smile
greetings to you from florida buddy

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Farmaz- fred mcdowell is imo the best blues man ever, i know alot of people think robert johnson is the best but i think mcdowell has a special something in his voice & bottleneck style that just shines above any other blues player. I so wish i was born a bit earlier & had the chance to see him live, i think its such a shame there aint no guys like this around today. its such a shame only a few people know of him. i bet most people think you gotta move was a original rolling stones tune & not a cover

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Shaker72- Sheer magic. The note he hits and holds at 00:51 gives me the shivers every time.

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MrEblues22- the first time I saw Fred (1969) everyone in the audience applauded when he tuned up! He was the best. I had the priviledge of seeing him several times before he died, and he never failed to impress everyone around him with his humility and his raw talent. He was the best- better than any 2 other players.

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jonno52- Real chills, massively powerful. I don't want to play off one bluesman against another but Fred McDowell & Skip James do it for me at least as much as Robert Johnson. John Hurt is the one I love most but country blues is an entirely different musical form. BTW, thanks a million for posting this.

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ipodjunkie5- This is blues greatness!

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nickw66 - wow,very raw and very real. A honor to have seen this video.

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karkarola-Unspeakable... Genius...

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Istaysmoking-one of the best blues performances caught on film

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Ye34rdfe- What is that last line?!

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banjochris- Last verse is:
Lord, I'm going down in Louisiana babe, I believe honey I'll carry my hook,
You know I'm goin' down in Louisiana, I believe I'll carry my hook,
Lord, them teasin' browns, I declare they's out (of) the book.

In other words, he's going "fishing" for some highly skilled women.

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oatslope - the funny thing is that he's from Tennessee. "Mississippi" was attached to his for marketing purposes because they thought it would sell better.

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theold2007- really? well they fooled me

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GBallaJ - Anyone have tabs?

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comradelopez- To put this type of music into tabs would kill it. No two performances should be identical.

But that's not going to get you playing. So here's a starting point: get your guitar into open-D tuning, and get comfortable with a slide. Around the 3rd fret on the 2nd and 5th strings, you'll find notes that make up a part of his main riff. You can play it in other places too, but that's what works for me. Put put some effort in and figure it out - Mississippi Fred didn't play from a tab after all.

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dalmatinac16- Hi there, blues fan here, I was wondering if someone knows the lyrics to this song?

The lyrics of 'Goin down to the river' on the internet don't match this song...

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dymitrFromPoland- tell me someone what's freddy singin in this song, cause i can't get it
what are the lirycs>???

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birkof0102 - Ok This is a Second Part, enjoy

I´m let the waves the water
Let the waves of the water, honey
Baby, wash my trouble down

Oh, Im getting slow baby
I can hold late rest the night
Oh, you know getting slow darling
You know I can hold late, rest the night

I know my baby
She aint treat me right

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alwaysdestroy84- i think he's saying "hardly rest at night". No?

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Posted in 2010:

agalligani- Wow... Fred... never saw this although I always worshipped Fred. What a voice... what a style. Just cuts you to the bone. Him, John Hurt Lightenin' Hopkins and Robert Johnson... the best of the best...

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schlooterhead- THAT is how its done. Period.

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bbyyaahh- one of the best most haunting voices in blues in my opinion

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psychosucks79- truly beautiful. masterpiece. have no words.

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Chickenhawk9932 - That playing and singing, heartfelt and painfully experienced - Beautiful.

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donnamariealba- Pure BRILLIANCE!!! Now THAT is the BLUES! Mississippi Fred McDowell!!!

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HowlinWilf13-A beautiful record (and a great clip of the man himself) - brilliant accoustic guitar playing and his voice at its powerful best.

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Sixgutstringable- it's a glass slide on his ring finger

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salsburysteakjr- My favorite guitar player of all time, easy. Nobody plays the slide guitar like he can.

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Wayevy6302- this is deep as blues can get

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JAYCHUCKBURNS - he's using his ring as the slide!! AWESOME!