Kathleen Loves Music

Mississippi Fred McDowell > My Babe

In late 1971 I was 20 years old and visiting my hippie friend Tom Pomposello at his “liberation” record store in our home town of Huntington, Long Island. He asked if my college radio staion had any recording equipment, and would I please come to the (Greenwich) Village Gaslight and record him playing bass with bluesman Mississippi Fred McDowell. The only blues I knew about was what I’d seen during the rock blues revival at the Fillmore East like B.B. and Albert Kings, but I figured that anyone with “Mississippi” in their name playing the very cool Gaslight must be famous. How Tom came to be playing with anyone famous is a question unanswered to this day. I dragged my friend Roy down with me and the mono tape recorder; we recorded the show and played it on my radio show.

A couple of years later Tom and I got the bright idea to start Oblivion Records to release Tom’s own music and since Fred McDowell was indeed world renowned with lots of records to his name, we figured starting with a name brand would a great way to launch. We were right and the album’s been in various forms of release most of the thirty years since (Tom’s son and I are making plans for the latest reissue right now).

–Fred

Mississippi Fred McDowell > My Babe