Fred McDowell
Album: Amazing Grace/My Home Is In The Delta
Label: Floating World
Tracks: 33
Website: http://www.floatingworldrecords.co.uk

The extraordinarily powerful delivery of blues singer/guitarist "Mississippi" Fred McDowell is legendary, and although he was only "discovered" (by Alan Lomax) as recently as 1959, his influence has since spread far and wide and onwards well into the present day, with well-respected figures from all musics readily acknowledging him as a key inspiration. So this is a timely reissue now for the pair of albums of largely "sanctified" material recorded by McDowell in the mid-1960s and originally released on Testament My Home Is In The Delta, recorded in two sessions (November 1963 and February 1964), begins with a host of classic delta blues numbers on which the cutting tones of Fred and his rhythmic bottleneck playing prove every bit as stark and memorable now as they did when I first encountered them.

These include signature, unforgettable renditions of the likes of The Sun Rose This Morning, Diving Duck Blues and Six White Horses, and explore the fullest range of the pure unadulterated blues side of Fred's repertoire.

They're supplemented by a generous handful of "country spirituals", duets on which Fred's joined by his wife Annie Mae - stirring stuff, and full of life and commitment. As indeed is the followup Amazing Grace album, recorded in 1966, which presents a collection of 16 delta spirituals on which Fred and his guitar either accompany, or else are augmented by, the Hunter's Chapel Singers of Como, Mississippi (that's Annie Mae with Fannie Davis, Grace Bowden and James Collins). The result is spellbinding - I'd defy anyone not to be roused and uplifted by numbers like You Got To Move…

OK, so just a few of the titles (Keep Your Lamp Trimmed And Burning, When I Lay My Burden Down, Jesus Gonna Make Up My Dying Bed, The Lord Will Make A Way and the lead track itself) are common to the earlier release, but this is of no import when the performances are of this calibre with their unique passion and vibrant ambience. The sound quality is fine, and the presentation is reasonable, with a booklet that reproduces the original sleeve notes.

David Kidman