Mississippi John Hurt
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Although not as
consistently magnificent as Hurt's 1928 recordings, the performances the artist
recorded for Vanguard in the mid 1960's would be the zenith of many blues
artist's entire careers. Songs like the opening "Payday" and
"Poor Boy, Long Ways From Home" rank with any folk-blues song ever
recorded. This fantastic set collects the three albums Vanguard released in
Hurt's lifetime.
No blues singer ever
presented a more gentle, genial image than Mississippi John Hurt. A guitarist
with an extraordinarily lyrical and refined finger picking style, he also sang
with a warmth unique in the field of blues, and the gospel influence in his
music gave it a depth and reflective quality unusual in the field.
Coupled with the sheer
gratitude and amazement that he felt over having found a mass audience so late
in life, and playing concerts in front of thousands of people -- for fees that
seemed astronomical to a man who had always made music a sideline to his life
as a farm laborer -- these qualities make Hurt's recordings into a very special
listening experience.
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John Hurt grew up in the
Mississippi hill country town of Avalon, population under 100, north of
Greenwood, near Grenada. He began playing guitar in 1903, and within a few
years was performing at parties, doing ragtime repertory rather than blues. As
a farm hand, he lived in relative isolation, and it was only in 1916, when he
went to work briefly for the railroad, that he got to broaden his horizons and
his repertory beyond Avalon. In the early '20s, he teamed up with white fiddle
player Willie Narmour, playing square dances.
Hurt was spotted by a
scout for Okeh Records who passed through Avalon in 1927, who was supposed to
record Narmour, and was signed to record after a quick audition. Of the eight
sides that Hurt recorded in Memphis in February of 1928, only two were ever
released, but he was still asked to record in New York late in 1928.
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Hurt's dexterity as a
guitarist, coupled with his plain-spoken nature, were his apparent undoing, at
least as a popular blues artist, at the time. His playing was too soft and
articulate, and his voice too plain to be taken up in a mass setting, such as a
dance; rather, his music was best heard in small, intimate gatherings. In that
sense, he was one of the earliest blues musicians to rely completely on the
medium of recorded music as a vehicle for mass success; where the records of
Furry Lewis or Blind Blake were mere distillations of music that they
(presumably) did much better on-stage, in John Hurt's case the records were
good representations of what he did best.
Additionally, Hurt never
regarded himself as a blues singer, preferring to let his relatively weak voice
speak for itself with none of the gimmicks that he might've used, especially in
the studio, to compensate. And he had no real signature tune with which he
could be identified, in the way that Furry Lewis had "Kassie Jones"
or "John Henry."
Not that Hurt didn't have
some great numbers in his song bag: "Frankie," "Louis
Collins," "Avalon Blues," "Candy Man Blues," "Big
Leg Blues," and "Stack O' Lee Blues," were all brilliant and
unusual as blues, in their own way, and highly influential on subsequent
generations of musicians. They didn't sell in large numbers at the time,
however, and as Hurt never set much store on a musical career, he was content to
make his living as a hired hand in Avalon, living on a farm and playing for
friends whenever the occasion arose.
Mississippi John Hurt
might've lived and died in obscurity, if it hadn't been for the folk music
revival of the late '50s and early '60s. A new generation of listeners and
scholars suddenly expressed a deep interest in the music of America's
hinterlands, not only in listening to it but finding and preserving it.
A scholar named Tom
Hoskins discovered that Mississippi John Hurt, who hadn't been heard from
musically in over 35 years, was alive and living in Avalon, MS, and sought him
out, following the trail laid down in Hurt's song "Avalon Blues."
Their meeting was a fateful one; Hurt was in his 70s, and weary from a lifetime
of backbreaking labor for pitifully small amounts of money, but his musical
ability was intact, and he bore no ill-will against anyone who wanted to hear
his music.
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A series of concerts were
arranged, including an appearance at the Newport Folk Festival, where he was
greeted as a living legend. This opened up a new world to Hurt, who was
grateful to find thousands, or even tens of thousands of people too young to
have even been born when he made his only records up to that time, eager to
listen to anything he had to sing or say. A tour of American universities
followed as did a series of recordings: first in a relatively informal,
non-commercial setting intended to capture him in his most comfortable and
natural surroundings, and later under the auspices of Vanguard Records, with
folk singer Patrick Sky producing.
It was 1965, and
Mississippi John Hurt had found a mass audience for his songs 35 years late. He
took the opportunity, playing concerts and making new records of old songs as
well as material he'd never before laid down; whether he eventually put down
more than a portion of his true repertory will probably never be clear, but
Hurt did leave a major legacy of his and other peoples' songs, in a style that
barely skipped a beat from his late-'20s Okeh sides.
As with many people to
whom success comes late in life, certain aspects of the success were hard for
him to absorb in stride; the money was more than he'd ever hoped to see, even
if it wasn't much by the standards of a major pop star; 1,000 dollar concert
fees were something he'd never even pondered having to deal with. What he did
most easily was sing and play; Vanguard got out a new album, Today!, in 1966,
from his first sessions for the label.
Additionally, the tape of
a concert that Hurt played at Oberlin College in April of 1965 was released
under the title The Best of Mississippi John Hurt; the 21-song live album was
just that, even if it wasn't made up of previously released work (more typical
of a "best-of" album), a perfect record of a beautiful performance in
which the man did old and new songs in the peak of his form. Hurt got in one
more full album, The Immortal Mississippi John Hurt, released posthumously, but
even better was the record assembled from his final sessions, Last Sessions,
also issued after his death; these songs broke new lyrical ground, and showed
Hurt's voice and guitar to be as strong as ever, just months before his death.
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Mississippi John Hurt
left behind a legacy unique in the annals of the blues, and not just in terms
of music. A humble, hard-working man who never sought fame or fortune from his
music, and who conducted his life in an honest and honorable manner, he also
avoided the troubles that afflicted the lives of many of his more tragic fellow
musicians. He was a pure musician, playing for himself and the smallest
possible number of listeners, developing his guitar technique and singing style
to please nobody but himself; and he suddenly found himself with a huge
following, precisely because of his unique style.
Mississippi John Hurt
Reviewed by Tom
on
7:03 AM
Rating:
Reviewed by Tom
on
7:03 AM
Rating:
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