mississippi fred mcdowell: i do not play no rock and roll

With these words and a few notes on his bottleneck slide guitar, Fred McDowell sets off on a panoramic tour of the blues called, appropriately enough, I Do Not Play No Rock and Roll. Stomping through nine songs with his guitar cutting through the heavy rhythm, McDowell is a reminder of how indebted rock is to the blues.

With all the indie chic heaped on R. L. Burnside the last several years, resulting in collaborations with Jon Spencer and sold-out shows across the country, this reissue of Burnside's neighbor and teacher Fred McDowell's stubborn final statement on the blues before his death, I Do Not Play No Rock And Roll shows us the roots of a music currently in a revival. As McDowell plays stinging electric slide over the pulsing rhythm, he achieves an almost trance-like state. He opens both sides of the album by telling his story and the story of the blues. This story is often punctuated by his guitar and, at different points, leads into versions of "Baby Please Don't Go" and "Everybody's Down on Me."

McDowell brings out terrifying, beautiful sounds on his guitar. From the country blues of "Glory Hallelujah" to the pounding "Red Cross Store" to the closing "Jesus is on the Mainline," McDowell is testifying, preaching the gospel of the blues in defiance of such rock idols as the Rolling Stones, who covered McDowell's "You Got to Move" almost identically to the original on Sticky Fingers.

McDowell was discovered by Alan Lomax during the first blues revival in the late '50s and early '60s. The current rediscovery of the blues has allowed artists like Burnside to resurface and has seen blues-loving rockers like Jon Spencer and Beck collaborating with and recording on tributes to bluesmen like Mississippi John Hurt and Burnside. Reissues like Fred McDowell's I Do Not Play No Rock and Roll remind us of the roots of so much of the music we now love so well; as he is testifying, all we can do is sit back and revel in it. (Fuel 2000)

—Cameron Leader-Picone

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