Michael Mcdowell Clue

2 CD Set Contains Previously Unreleased Performances. JESUS ON THE MAINLINE is drawn from two 1971 concerts; April 14th, 1971 in Tacoma, Washington, and November 5th, 1971 at the Gaslight In New York, which would prove to be the final recording of the Delta Blues legend. The bottleneck guitarist was 67 years old when these tracks were recorded and his passion and conviction seem to have strengthened with the years. At this point in McDowell's career he had shifted to playing electric slide guitar. Accompanying McDowell's gruff voice, the guitar often seems to finish the singer's sentences for him; it's like listening to an old married couple.

"Mississippi" Fred McDowell played simple, haunting blues with vivid, demonstrative passion and power. He wasn't a great guitarist, but his voicings and backings were always memorable, while his singing never lacked intensity or conviction or failed to hold interest. This 1965 set contains mostly McDowell compositions, with the exception of the set's final number, a nearly seven-minute exposition of Big Bill Broonzy's "Louise." Assisted only at times by his wife Annie, Fred McDowell makes every song entertaining, whether they're humorous, poignant, reflective, or bemused.

Bessie Jones, John Davis, and the Georgia Sea Island Singers gained wide renown during the 1960s and ‘70s for their powerful performances of traditional songs from the African American Gullah Geechee community on St. Simons Island, Georgia. Most in the group were born and raised on St. Simons, and could trace their ancestry to the enslaved West and Central Africans who worked on the island’s cotton plantations. Throughout the ‘60s, the Georgia Sea Island Singers were prominent voices in the civil rights movement, bringing hundreds of years of Black musical tradition to bear on a pivotal time in American history. This previously unheard recording captures their complete Friends of Old Time Music concert of April 1965, at which they were joined by legendary bluesman Mississippi Fred McDowell, cane fife player Ed Young, and folklorist Alan Lomax, who acted as emcee.