Mississippi John Hurt

For the actor, see John Hurt.

Mississippi John Hurt
Hurt making a recording for the Library of Congress in 1964.
Background information
Birth name	John Smith Hurt
Born	(1893-07-03)July 3, 1893 or (1892-03-08)March 8, 1892 Teoc, Carroll County, Mississippi, United States
Origin	Avalon, Mississippi
Died	Grenada, Mississippi
Genres	Country blues, Delta blues, Folk
Occupation(s)	Singer-songwriter, Sharecropper, Farm hand
Instruments	Guitar, Vocals
Years active	1928, 1963 – 1966
Labels	Okeh Vanguard
Associated acts	Shell Smith Willie Narmour
Notable instruments
Guild F-30NT

John Smith Hurt, better known as Mississippi John Hurt (July 3, 1893 or March 8, 1892 – November 2, 1966) was an American country blues singer and guitarist.

Raised in Avalon, Mississippi, Hurt taught himself how to play the guitar around age nine. Singing to a melodious finger-picked accompaniment, he began to play local dances and parties while working as a sharecropper. He first recorded for Okeh Records in 1928, but these recordings were commercial failures. Hurt then drifted out of the recording scene and continued to work as a farmer. Tom Hoskins, a blues enthusiast, located Hurt in 1963 and convinced him to relocate to Washington, D.C. where he was recorded by the Library of Congress in 1964. This helped further the American folk music revival, which had led to the rediscovery of many other bluesmen of Hurt's era. Hurt entered the university and coffeehouse concert circuit with other Delta blues musicians brought out of retirement. As well as playing concerts, he recorded several albums for Vanguard Records.

Hurt died in Grenada, Mississippi. Material recorded by him has been re-released by many record labels over the years and his songs have been recorded by Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia, Beck, Doc Watson, John McCutcheon, Taj Mahal, Bruce Cockburn, David Johansen, Bill Morrissey, Gillian Welch, Guthrie Thomas, Parsonsfield, and Rory Block.

Biography

Early years

Born John Smith Hurt in Teoc, Carroll County, Mississippi, and raised in Avalon, Mississippi, he learned to play guitar at age nine. He was completely self-taught, stealthily playing the guitar of a friend of his mother's, who often stayed at the Hurt home while courting a lady who lived nearby. He spent much of his youth playing old time music for friends and dances, earning a living as a farmhand into the 1920s. His fast, highly syncopated style of playing made his music adept for dancing. On occasion, a medicine show would come through the area; Hurt recalls being wanted by one of them. "One of them wanted me, but I said no because I just never wanted to get away from home." In 1923 he partnered with the fiddle player Willie Narmour as a substitute for his regular partner Shell Smith.

First recordings

When Narmour got a chance to record for Okeh Records as a prize for winning first place in a 1928 fiddle contest, he recommended Hurt to Okeh Records producer Tommy Rockwell. After auditioning "Monday Morning Blues" at his home, he took part in two recording sessions, in Memphis and New York City (see Discography below). While in Memphis, Hurt recalled seeing "many, many blues singers ... Lonnie Johnson, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Bessie Smith, and lots, lots more." Hurt described his first recording session as such:

... a great big hall with only the three of us in it: me, the man [Rockwell], and the engineer. It was really something. I sat on a chair, and they pushed the microphone right up to my mouth and told me that I couldn't move after they had found the right position. I had to keep my head absolutely still. Oh, I was nervous, and my neck was sore for days after.

Hurt attempted further negotiations with Okeh to record again, but after the commercial failure of the resulting records, and Okeh Records going out of business during the Great Depression, Hurt returned to Avalon and obscurity, working as a sharecropper and playing local parties and dances.

Rediscovery

Grave of Mississippi John Hurt

After Hurt's renditions of "Frankie" and "Spike Driver Blues" were included in The Anthology of American Folk Music in 1952, and an Australian man discovered a copy of "Avalon Blues", there became increased interest in finding Hurt himself. In 1963, a folk musicologist, Tom Hoskins, supervised by Richard Spottswood, was able to locate Hurt near Avalon, Mississippi, using the lyrics of "Avalon Blues":

Avalon, my home town, always on my mind/Avalon, my home town.

While in Avalon, Hoskins convinced an apprehensive Hurt to perform several songs for him, to ensure that he was genuine. Hoskins was convinced, and seeing that Hurt's guitar playing skills were still intact, Hoskins encouraged him to move to Washington, D.C., and begin performing on a wider stage. His performance at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival saw his star rise amongst the new folk revival audience. Before his death he played extensively in colleges, concert halls, coffee houses, and on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, as well as recording three further albums for Vanguard Records. Much of his repertoire was recorded for the Library of Congress, also. His fans particularly liked the ragtime songs "Salty Dog" and "Candy Man", and the blues ballads "Spike Driver Blues" (a variant of "John Henry") and "Frankie".

Hurt's influence spanned several music genres including blues, spirituals, country, bluegrass, folk, and contemporary rock and roll. A soft-spoken man, his nature was reflected in the work, which consisted of a mellow mix of country, blues, and old time music.

Hurt died on November 2, 1966, of a heart attack in Avalon, Mississippi according to the liner notes included with his Live album.

Style

Hurt incorporated a fast, syncopated fingerpicking style that he taught himself. He was influenced by very few people; but did recall an elderly, unrecorded, blues singer from that area, Rufus Hanks, who played twelve-string guitar and harmonica. He also recalled listening to the country singer Jimmie Rodgers. On occasion, Hurt would use an open tuning and a slide, as he did in his arrangement of "The Ballad of Casey Jones". According to music critic Robert Christgau, "the school of John Fahey proceeded from his finger-picking, and while he's not the only quietly conversational singer in the modern folk tradition, no one else has talked the blues with such delicacy or restraint."

Tributes

The Mississippi John Hurt Museum in Avalon, Mississippi

There is now a memorial in Avalon, Mississippi, for Mississippi John Hurt. It is parallel to RR2, the rural road on which he grew up.

American singer-songwriter Tom Paxton, who met Hurt and played on the same bill as him at the Gaslight in Greenwich Village around 1963, wrote and recorded a song about him in 1977 entitled "Did You Hear John Hurt?" Paxton still frequently plays this song at his live performances.

The first track of John Fahey's 1968 solo acoustic guitar album Requia is entitled "Requiem For John Hurt". Fahey's posthumous live album The Great Santa Barbara Oil Slick also features a version of the piece, there entitled "Requiem For Mississippi John Hurt".

British folk/blues artist Wizz Jones recorded a tribute song called "Mississippi John" for his 1977 album Magical Flight.

Delta blues artist Rory Block recorded an album called Avalon - A Tribute to Mississippi John Hurt released in 2013 as part of her "Mentor Series".

New England singer-songwriter Bill Morrissey released the Grammy-nominated album Songs of Mississippi John Hurt in 1999.

Discography

Sources for this section are as follows:

78 rpm releases

• "Frankie"/"Nobody's Dirty Business" (Okeh Records, OKeh 8560) (1928)
• "Stack O' Lee"/"Candy Man Blues" (Okeh Records, OKeh 8654) (1928)
• "Blessed Be the Name"/"Praying on the Old Camp Ground" (Okeh Records, OKeh 8666) (1928)
• "Blue Harvest Blues"/"Spike Driver Blues" (Okeh Records, OKeh 8692) (1928)
• "Louis Collins"/"Got the Blues (Can't Be Satisfied)" (Okeh Records, OKeh 8724) (1928)
• "Ain't No Tellin'"/"Avalon Blues" (Okeh Records, OKeh 8759) (1928)

Albums

• Folk Songs and Blues [live recordings] (Piedmont Records, PLP 13757) (1963)
• Worried Blues (Piedmont Records, PLP 13161) (1964)
• Today! (Vanguard Records, VSD-79220) (1966)
• The Immortal Mississippi John Hurt (Vanguard Records, VSD-79248) (1967)
• The Best of Mississippi John Hurt [live recordings] (Vanguard Records, VSD-19/20) (1970)
• Last Sessions (Vanguard Records, VSD-79327) (1972)
• Volume One of a Legacy [live recordings] (Piedmont Records, CLPS 1068) (1975)
• Monday Morning Blues: The Library of Congress Recordings – Volume One (Flyright Records, FLYLP 553) (1980)
• Avalon Blues: The Library of Congress Recordings – Volume Two (Heritage Records, HT-301) (1982)
• Satisfied [live recordings] (Quicksilver Intermedia, QS 5007) (1982)
• The Candy Man [live recordings] (Quicksilver Intermedia, QS 5042) (1982)
• Sacred and Secular: The Library of Congress Recordings – Volume Three (Heritage Records, HT-320) (1988)
• Avalon Blues (Flyright Records, FLYCD 06) (1989)
• Memorial Anthology [live recordings] (Genes Records, GCD 9906/7) (1993)

Selected compilation albums

• The Original 1928 Recordings (Spokane Records, SPL 1001) (1971)
• 1928: Stack O' Lee Blues – His First Recordings (Biograph Records, BLP C4) (1972)
• 1928 Sessions (Yazoo Records, L 1065) (1979)
• Satisfying Blues (Collectables Records, VCL 5529) (1995)
• Avalon Blues: The Complete 1928 Okeh Recordings (Columbia Records, CK64986) (1996)
• Rediscovered (Vanguard Records, CD 79519) (1998)
• The Complete Recordings (Vanguard Records, CD 70181-2) (1998)
• Candy Man Blues: The Complete 1928 Sessions (Snapper Music, SBLUECD 010) (2004)

External links

• Mississippi John Hurt Museum Includes a link to a discussion forum regarding Mississippi John Hurt with substantive participation by grand nephew, Fred Bolden.
• Mississippi John Hurt News Website run by Hurt's grand nephew, Fred Bolden. Has several forums and discussions open to the public.
• Illustrated Mississippi John Hurt discography
• Allmusic
• Mississippi John Hurt's Stackolee Recording, sheet music and guitar tab.

Further reading

• Ratcliffe, Philip R., (2011) Mississippi John Hurt: His Life, His Times, His Blues. Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi.