Mississippi Fred McDowell and Johnny Woods

AMG Review of Mississippi Fred McDowell and Johnny Woods

Eugene Chadbourne
All Music Guide

Although this label has over-produced many a lues session, this particular project saw the light of the day in a rougher, more honest form than might be the norm for Rounder. It originally popped up on vinyl in the mid-'70s, several years after Mississippi Fred McDowell had died. In the '90s, the material was re-released on compact disc on Philo as well as the original label. The continued interest in this recording is not difficult to understand. It certainly is exactly what it was presented as: a casual and off-the-cuff get-together between two old friends, recorded down in their neighborhood, and not the result of some nervous and sloppily organized trip to the big city recording studio. McDowell made his best music solo, but this is a chance to hear him making sparks fly with another musician. Johnny Woods is no virtuoso harp player, but he comes up with many nice touches and the instrument itself does not get in the way of McDowell's approach, which is more than one can say for other recordings in which drummers and bassists get stuck in the door. McDowell seems to have relied on a few too many tried and true numbers for this recording, trotting out both "Smokestack Lightning" and "John Henry" as well as "Red Cross Store," a number he recorded several times. This sets it apart from superior recordings by the artist in which he came up with a surprising amount of varied material, but the intensity and stretched-out nature of some of these performances makes up for it.