Fred McDowell's guitars for sale!

[Michael Messer]

Dick Waterman has just posted this on FaceBook.....

The guitars of the late Fred McDowell are coming onto the market. The guy who got them at the funeral (July, 1972) feels that he is getting up in age and want to sell them to a good guy (woman) who will honor their pedigree.
I was there when Ester Mae McDowell gave him the guitars so I can authenticate that that are indeed Fred's guitars . . .
"Shake 'em on down . . ."
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Shine On
Michael

[slide496]

whoa! I hope you'll keep us updated, be real interesting.

[Michael Messer]

I have asked Dick to let me know who the seller is and when they will be on sale.

Until 1969, Fred recorded using his old wood-bodied National or his acoustic Hofner guitar and it was noted that he never used picks when he played them. His first electric guitar was a red, dual pickup cheap version of a Gibson ES-335 that was soon superseded by a Gibson Trini Lopez Standard which he used for the rest of his life. The electric guitars were always strung with Black Diamond Electric Strings – the pack with the unwound G string being essential. He used a plastic thumb pick and plastic pick on his index finger and a short glass slide about an inch and a half long, made from the neck of a Gordon’s Gin bottle.

His tuning was standard, open A or open E. In standard tuning he’d play in the key of E with the bottleneck on his little finger and for open E it would go on the ring finger. Fred looked after his bottlenecks. It seems he only had six in his entire playing life and once before a gig, Tom Pomposello, who was there to play second guitar, caught Fred frantically searching his guitar case before whooping with relief at finding his bottleneck. “Tom, if I’d lost that” he said, “I might have well turned around and went back home.”

As soon as I see photos of the guitars I will post them on here.

These guitars should really stay together as a collection. I am not they will, but I think they should.

This is a great article about Fred McDowell...
www.propergandaonline.com/in-depth-mississippi-fred-mcdowell/

Shine On
Michael

[slide496]

MM thanks for the article - I read a different story in an interview Tom Pomposello in a Guitar Magazine from the seventies about the lost European slide, and confirms what the article you quoted states as his equipments,which I can't find again

An article on recording his gaslight performance that might be of interest: -pix of equipment:

oblivionrecords.tumblr.com/post/798269863/recording-fred

[Michael Messer]

Hi Harriet,

I know of a couple of slides in the UK that the owners claim they were given by Fred. I give slides away, but never my favourites. If anyone has a slide that I gave them, it is because it is a good slide and I didn't use it.

That is a good article about the live recording. Best way....plug in and go!

Shine On
Michael

[slide496]

I wonder if he did similar, passed on a slide he was given?

Here's the 1977 article -different story on the lost slide though:
www.scribd.com/doc/3074437/Mississippi-Fred-McDowell

And here is the booklet in pdf format that accompanied the Lomax recordings:
www.culturalequity.org/ce_images/features/McDowell/GJ1007_FredMcDowell_Booklet.pdf

And here is a eulogy page from Tom Pomosello in his Oblivion records blog about his passing:
oblivionrecords.tumblr.com/search/fred+mcdowell

[Michael Messer]

Latest update from Dick Waterman:

Fred McDowell's guitars:

This is the information that I received from the person who owns Fred McDowell's guitars.Please cross post to any area where Interested folks might read:
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Fred McDowell's acoustic guitar is an early-to-mid-sixties Hofner "Congress" model with no visible numbering. This is the guitar Fred and Son House performed with at the 1968 Beloit "Convocation Cluster" - the same series of events which also included Arthur Crudup and Junior Wells. I have a newspaper from Rockford, Illinois featuring a photograph of Son House playing the Hofner. The guitar is also in the cover photo of Fred's "Amazing Grace" album on the Testament label, and it can also be seen in a photo on youtube which is used as an illustration for Fred's "Standing At The Burying Ground". The only repair I had done was on the G-string tuning gear which was slightly bent before the work.

Fred McDowell's electric guitar is a Gibson "Trini Lopez" model, serial number 307710. There have been no modifications or repairs since I took possession. The guitar is used in a nice youtube video of "Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning" and another of "Louise". If I can find it, I also have a great picture of Fred with the guitar in a European blues magazine - I think "Jefferson" from Sweden.


Very cool indeed >

I WANT ONE!!!!

Shine On
Michael

[marcspark]

Me too Michael ;D but the big question is how much are they going for? it must be a fortune, at a guess £25 000 maybe double. I just wish that i'd win the Lottery ;D
Take care Marc ;D

[Deleted]

Hi Marc
he "wants to sell them to a good guy (woman) who will honor their pedigree".
There are good people who will do that - Colin McCubbin for example!!
We'll see if the old man is good on his word.
TT

[slide496]

I thought I read they were actively looking for alot of money for them -or maybe that was an opinion of someone as to how it should go? Believe Son House 's went for $100, 000.

[Michael Messer]

I have missed guitars like this in the past, because I didn't realise their potential value. In 1979, I could have bought Bukka White's National guitar for $700 (USD), and then in the early 90s I could have bought the same guitar for somewhere around £10,000 (GBP). Both times I could have raised the funds, but didn't.

Fred McDowell's guitars will certainly be worth a lot of money, but having read that things have been changed on them, and that they have been played for the past forty years by their current owner, is worrying and may affect their value.

As much as I can see the point of view that Fred would not want to see them in a museum, what Fred didn't take into account (if that is how he would think) that he was one of the most important African American musicians of the 20th century. This does slightly affect what these guitars actually are. It is too late now, but they should not have been worked on, or IMO played every day by their owner.

Shine On
Michael.

[slide496]

I don't think they should have been worked on or played and then offered as Fred McDowells guitars, but at least they were honest. Restrung exactly with same strungs and checked out - I think MM said they need to be played occasionally.

IMHO I would have thought for posterity that Fred or any of the great blues players would have been thrilled to be honored with a place in history in a museum like the Smithsonian, which would keep their name alive, and honor the instrument. I don't get the concept that McDowell would want it to be played, especially the trademark sound trini lopez.

[Michael Messer]

I agree, such important historical instruments should have been preserved exactly as they were the last time Fred played them. To have used these guitars as just another guitar for the past forty years, is a great shame.

Shine On
Michael

[blueshome]

When I saw Fred in 1964 he was playing a Hofner Congress, being familar with that type of guitar, I couldn't believe the sounds he got - the first time I'd heard acoustic bottleneck live.
.
I assume he acquired it when the tour started in Germany. It's not something he would have been likely to encounter in the USA. One can suppose he was drawn to it by its similarity to the Harmony arch top he was shown playing in the Lomax photos in 1959.

[AlanB]

May 23, 2013 14:52:29 GMT blueshome said:

When I saw Fred in 1964 he was playing a Hofner Congress, being familar with that type of guitar, I couldn't believe the sounds he got - the first time I'd heard acoustic bottleneck live.
.
I assume he acquired it when the tour started in Germany. It's not something he would have been likely to encounter in the USA. One can suppose he was drawn to it by its similarity to the Harmony arch top he was shown playing in the Lomax photos in 1959.

I think you might have hit 4 instead of 5. He toured Europe in 1965......Easily done, I do such all the time.