Mississippi Fred McDowell - Come and Found You Gone

This CD is the result of another fascinating story of a recording archivist sitting down for a private session and getting some incredible performances. Like the John Lee Hooker Jack O'Diamonds recording that I talked about recently, this captures McDowell at the height of his powers with a terrific set of tunes and with added contributions from his wife, Annie Mae, friend Napolean Strickland and an unnamed singer (on "Dreamed I Went to the U.N.").

The majority of this is Fred's standard, terrific, open-tuning, drone-y, bottleneck blues, interacting with his voice in a call-and-answer that was his trademark. But there are also some hymns with Annie Mae singing and, as I said, Strickland and another unnamed gentleman take the mic for a song each, which spices up the proceedings.

But, I love McDowell's stripped-down blues and have dug damn near everything that I've heard by him and this is right up there with the best! Check it out!