SHIRLEY COLLINS ~

 

R E A D   M E

Shirley, 1967. Photo by David Montgomery

SHIRLEY COLLINS ~

 

R E A D   M E

      White Rabbit 2022

SHIRLEY COLLINS ~

SHIRLEY COLLINS / DAVY GRAHAM ~

SHIRLEY COLLINS ~

"Perfect" ~

Mississippi Fred McDowell

"I shall never forget", wrote Shirley Collins," the first sight I had of Fred in his dungarees, carrying his guitar and walking out of the woods toward us in a Mississippi night." Collins traveling companion and recording genius Alan Lomax recorded McDowell over four nights in 1959. Night time, because during the day McDowell was picking cotton. As Tom Piazza describes the bluesmaker in his book The Southern Journey of Alan Lomax ~ McDowell was "a sharecropper who sang and played slide guitar in juke joints and at dances, he embodied a legacy of black work songs and field hollers. When he performed his "61 Highway Blues" for Lomax, the folklorist wrote a single word beside the entry in his field log: "Perfect."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_Fred_McDowell

NEW FROM LONGHOUSE! ~

please click on image



Creations by the author under the influence of British folklorist Shirley Collins, with Scotland's Laurie Clark drawings throughout



An Anthology Gathered for Shirley Collins. Longhouse, 2012. First edition. New and limited. A signed edition is available upon request.
$8, unsigned


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