Stuckey’s
didn’t just bring the world pecan rolls. They helped facilitate the Blues
Revival. One of their roadside service stations regularly took messages and
received mail (including royalty checks and plane tickets) for their occasional
employee, “Mississippi” Fred McDowell. His story might follow a somewhat
familiar trajectory, but McDowell’s rise from utter obscurity to an
international concert and recording star is still remarkable. His life and
career are chronicled in Joe York’s Shake
Em On Down (trailer
here),
which airs as part of the current season of Reel South on PBS’s World Channel (hosted by Darius Rucker).
McDowell
(those who knew him put the stress on the “Mac”) never recorded during the
vintage blues boom of the 1930s. Although popular at local jukes and dances, he
went completely undocumented until Alan Lomax and Shirley Collins recorded him
in 1959. However, the Lomax seal of approval would become the gold standard for
blues revivalists in the 1960s. It turned out McDowell was ridiculously easy to
find (thanks again to Stuckey’s) and a tailor-made performer for the folk and
blues festival circuit.
You
could almost say McDowell was a precursor to punk. He could get a huge sound
out of an unamplified guitar, often working just one chord, or even a single
note. McDowell had lived a hard life, but he was still happy to mentor a young
kid who idolized him, named Bonnie Raitt.
We
hear a good deal of McDowell’s music, including the title tune, which hipper
viewers should already know the Rolling Stones covered (but did not write
themselves). Of course, nearly all of McDowell’s contemporaries are now jamming
in the sky, but York incorporates some archival reminiscences from his great
friend and rival R.L. Burnside. He also scores interviews with Raitt, Burnside’s
grandson Cedric, Charlie Musselwhite, Taj Mahal, Dom Flemons, R.L. Boyce,
Barbara Dane, and Luther Dickinson of the North Mississippi Allstars.
