Mississippi Fred McDowell — I Do Not Play No Rock ‘n’ Roll

Way back when, The Blues Brothers declared that in the future blues records would only exist in the classical music section of your public library. It seems like they weren’t terribly wrong. The blues was niche listening when they said that, and it’s probably even more so now. But damn, I love the blues, and these days, if I find an old blues record, especially Delta or Chicago blues, I’m pretty likely to pick it up, and so when I found this 1971 release at a Forever Changes popup in the summer of 2019, I knew I had to give it a good home.

Besides, how could I say no to a record with this title? I knew the name of Mississippi Fred McDowell, but didn’t have any other music by him. Well – this is Delta blues all right – so Delta that his accent, on the extensive spoken parts of the record, is pretty impenetrable. Luckily, his dialoge was transcribed and forms the liner notes. When he not holding forth on why he doesn’t play no rock ‘n’ roll, he is delivering the goods with a bottleneck slide. This is a great blues record.