Fred McDowell

Mississippi Fred McDowell was not born in Mississippi. He was born in Rossville, Tennessee, in 1904 and moved to Como around 1940. Folklorist Alan Lomax recorded him in 1959 and put him on Sounds of the South. McDowell's slide guitar shaped young white players such as Bonnie Raitt, and in 1971 the Rolling Stones covered his version of "You've Got to Move" on Sticky Fingers. A session in Jackson with Malaco produced his 1970 Capitol LP, I Do Not Play No Rock 'n' Roll. He died in Memphis in 1972.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sardis Lake and Dam — 11 mi
  A flood-control lake on the Little Tallahatchie, built from 1930s labor and a dredge named Pontotoc, with a dam that for years was the largest earth-filled dam in the world.
• The Lyceum and the Circle, University of Mississippi — 25 mi
  The 1848 Greek Revival building at the center of the Ole Miss campus, where federal marshals held off a mob on 30 September 1962 and James Meredith registered the next morning.
• Rowan Oak — 26 mi
  William Faulkner's Greek Revival house in Oxford, bought in 1930 and kept by the University of Mississippi, with the outline of A Fable still written on his study wall.
• Oxford Square — 26 mi
  The courthouse square laid out in 1837 on land bought from a Chickasaw woman, rebuilt after the 1864 burning and home to Square Books and a memorial to Lafayette County's lynching victims.

More markers nearby

• Otha Turner — steps away
• Como — steps away
• Sardis — 5.4 mi
• Jessie Mae Hemphill — 5.8 mi