Politics and Culture
Maybe the greatest slide guitar player of them all, beautifully recorded and filmed:
I think this is from the American Folk Blues Festival tour of the Sixties. Certainly from that time: he was "rediscovered" by Alan Lomax in 1959, at the age of 55, and died in 1972.
Also, Shake 'Em On Down, and, from the same session, When I Lay My Burden Down.
Blues Maker is an excellent short (13 minute) 1969 film on Fred McDowell at the University of Mississippi site.
He was discovered by Lomax – unlike the other 60s blues guys he had never recorded before. In fact, he never had been a paid musician at all or heard himself sing – there’s a famous photo of him listening to a tape playback for the first time.
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I saw Fred in the Swansea folk club early 70’s. His electric guitar wouldn’t work so he simply picked up the warm up artists acoustic guitar. The audience, about 20 of us had often heard it played so when Fred started I thought – “This is impossible! that box can not make those sounds” and when he finally got his own guitar going it was even more electric. Easily the best blues artist I ever saw.
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Mick Hartley 
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