Page 25 - BiTS_01_JANUARY_2021

Those Mississippi Hill Country Blues

by
Jim Simpson

Jim Simpson, the owner of Big Bear Records, has been involved in the music business for nearly
60 years, as musician, bandleader, promoter, record producer, festival director, manager,

journalist and photographer. Jim’s other life is as the proprietor of Henry’s Blues House a venue
in Birmingham and of Henry’s Virtual Blues House a free weekly news letter filled with delights.
If you are in Birmingham after this dreadful pandemic is sent packing visit the Blues House at
The Bull’s Head, Bishopsgate Street, B’ham, B15 1EJ. In the mean time sign up for the Virtual Blues
House by clicking here

Here is an example of the goodies you will receive.

HEADIN' FOR THE HILLS

Mississippi Delta Blues is a well-known and recognisable form of blues music, but there is a lesser-
known style that might well have slipped under the radar of some folks. It was in the North
Mississippi counties of Marshall, Panola, Tate, Tippah and Lafayette where virtually the only work
to be found was in the lumber industry and the small farms that The Mississippi Hill Country Blues

originally took shape.

That music is deep Country Blues with a driving rhythm, hollered singing over a basic chord
sequence, heavy, riffing, hypnotic guitar, unexpected and irregular song structures and with all the
feeling you could wish for. The towns of Holly Springs and Oxford, less than 60 miles from

Memphis, Tennessee are considered to be at the centre of Mississippi Hill Country Blues.

The most familiar Hill Country Blues musician was the massively
influential Mississippi Fred McDowell, with artists such as
Bonnie Raitt and The Rolling Stones acknowledging McDowell’s
work. Raitt developed her slide guitar technique from listening to
his recordings and recorded his songs, while The Stones laid

down a rocking version of his classic ‘You Gotta Move’ on the
“Sticky Fingers” album.

McDowell was born in 1904 in Rossville, Tennessee to farmers
Jimmy McDowell and Ida Cureay who both died while Fred was in

his youth. He worked on a farm, taught himself to play guitar,
played local dances until he left home at 22 to hobo as an
itinerant musician playing suppers, picnics, house parties, fish
fries and dances in Red Banks, Lamar and Holly Springs in the
Mississippi Hill Country, before settling in Como to work as a
farmer, continuing to perform at weekends. He married singer Annie May Collins in 1940, who
stayed with him until the end. They had one child.

25