Avalon is about 20 or so miles southwest of Grenada. Move north up I-55 from Grenada about 50 miles and you are at the Como exit. Como is another town at the edge of the hills. In the late 60s and 70s, there was a Stuckey’s in the Southeast corner of the intersection. Regularly to be found there pumping gas was Mississippi Fred McDowell. He was born in Rossville, Tennesse but spent his adult life in Misssisippi. In 1959, Alam Lomax found him there and made his first recording. Here are three clips, “John Henry,” related to the John Henry variant “Spike Driver” from yesterday’s John Hurt video, then “Going Down to the River,” then “Shake Em On Down.”
I’ll write more about McDowell and Shake Em On Down in a post tomorrow.
