John Smith Hurt (March 8, 1893[1][nb 1] – November 2, 1966), known as Mississippi John Hurt, was an American country blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist.[3]
Hurt was raised in Avalon, Mississippi and taught himself to play the guitar around the age of nine. He worked as a sharecropper and began playing at dances and parties, singing to a melodious fingerpicked accompaniment.[4] His first recordings, made for Okeh Records in 1928, were commercial failures, and he continued to work as a farmer.
Dick Spottswood and Tom Hoskins, a blues enthusiast, located Hurt in 1963 and persuaded him to move to Washington, D.C.[5] He was recorded by the Library of Congress in 1964. This helped further the American folk music revival, which led to the rediscovery of many other bluesmen of Hurt's era. Hurt performed on the university and coffeehouse concert circuit with other Delta blues musicians who were brought out of retirement. He also recorded several albums for Vanguard Records.
Hurt returned to Grenada, Mississippi, in 1966, where he died at the age of 73.
Material recorded by Hurt has been re-released by several record labels. His songs have been recorded by Bob Dylan, Dave Van Ronk, Jerry Garcia, Beck, Doc Watson, John McCutcheon, Taj Mahal, Bruce Cockburn, David Johansen, Bill Morrissey, Gillian Welch, The Be Good Tanyas, Josh Ritter, Chris Smither, Guthrie Thomas, Parsonsfield, and Rory Block.[6]
Hurt was born in Teoc,[7] Carroll County, Mississippi, and raised in Avalon, Mississippi. He taught himself to play guitar at the age of nine, stealthily playing the guitar of William Henry Carson, a friend of his mother, Mary Jane, who often stayed at the Hurt home while courting a woman who lived nearby.[8] As a youth, he played old-time music for friends and at dances. He worked as a farmhand and sharecropper into the 1920s.[9]
Hurt's fast, highly syncopated style of playing was meant for dancing. On occasion, a medicine show came through the area. Hurt recalled that one wanted to hire him: "One of them wanted me, but I said no because I just never wanted to get away from home."[7] In 1923, he played with the fiddle player Willie Narmour as a substitute for Narmour's regular partner, Shell Smith.[9]
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 producer Tommy Rockwell.[10] After auditioning "Monday Morning Blues" at his home, Hurt took part in two recording sessions, in Memphis and New York City.[9] While in Memphis, he recalled seeing "many, many blues singers ... Lonnie Johnson, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Bessie Smith, and lots, lots more."[7] Hurt described his first recording session:
... 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.[7]
Hurt attempted further negotiations with Okeh to record again, but his records were commercial failures. Okeh went out of business during the Great Depression, and Hurt returned to Avalon and obscurity, working as a sharecropper and playing at local parties and dances.[4]
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Hurt's renditions of "Frankie" and "Spike Driver Blues" were included in The Anthology of American Folk Music in 1952 which generated considerable interest in locating him.[11] When a copy of "Avalon Blues" was discovered in 1963, it led musicologist Dick Spottswood to locate Avalon, Mississippi, in an atlas, and ask Tom Hoskins, who was traveling that way, to enquire after Hurt.[5][12]
Avalon, my home town, always on my mind / Avalon, my home town.
— Mississippi John Hurt, "Avalon Blues"
Upon locating Hurt, Hoskins persuaded him to perform several songs, to ensure that he was genuine.[11] Hoskins was convinced and, seeing that Hurt's guitar playing skills were still intact, encouraged him to move to Washington, D.C., and perform for a broader audience. Early in 1963 Hurt recorded an album, Folk Songs And Blues, that was released in August 1963 through Piedmont Records.[13] His performance at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival caused his star to rise in the folk revival occurring at that time.[4] Soon after, in 1964, he recorded live for radio in Massachusetts with Skip James.[14][15]
For a few short years, Hurt performed extensively at colleges, concert halls, and coffeehouses and appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. He also recorded three albums for Vanguard Records.[4] Much of his repertoire was also recorded for the Library of Congress. 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".[4]
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.[9]
Hurt died of a heart attack on November 2, 1966, at a hospital in Grenada, Mississippi.[1] His last recordings had been done at a hotel in New York City in February and July of that year but were not released until 1972 on the Vanguard LP Last Sessions.[16]
Hurt used a fast, syncopated fingerpicking style of guitar playing that he taught himself. He was influenced by few other musicians, among whom was Rufus Hanks, an elderly, unrecorded blues singer from the area where he lived, who played twelve-string guitar and harmonica.[7]
According to the 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."[17]
There was a memorial and museum dedicated to Hurt in Avalon, Mississippi, parallel to RR2, the rural road on which he grew up. On February 20, 2024, it was destroyed in a fire the day after being made a National Landmark. Arson is not suspected. [18]
The singer-songwriter Tom Paxton, who met Hurt and played on the same bill with him at the Gaslight in Greenwich Village around 1963, wrote and recorded a song about him in 1977, "Did You Hear John Hurt?".[19]
The first track of John Fahey's 1968 solo acoustic guitar album Requia is "Requiem for John Hurt". Fahey's posthumous live album, The Great Santa Barbara Oil Slick, also features a version of the piece, entitled "Requiem for Mississippi John Hurt".
Norman Greenbaum's eclectic minor hit, "Gondoliers, Shakespeares, Overseers, Playboys And Bums" refers to Mississippi John Hurt singing the blues.[20]
The British folk and blues artist Wizz Jones recorded a tribute song, "Mississippi John", for his 1977 album Magical Flight.
The Delta blues artist Rory Block recorded the album Avalon: A Tribute to Mississippi John Hurt, released in 2013 as part of her "Mentor Series".[6]
The New England singer-songwriter Bill Morrissey released the Grammy-nominated album Songs of Mississippi John Hurt in 1999.
In 2017, Hurt's life story was told in the documentary series American Epic.[21] The film featured footage of Hurt performing and being interviewed,[22][23] and improved restorations of his 1920s recordings.[24][25] Director Bernard MacMahon stated that Hurt "was the inspiration for American Epic".[23] Hurt's life was profiled in the accompanying book, American Epic: The First Time America Heard Itself.[26]
In 2023, Rolling Stone ranked Hurt at number 159 on its list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.[27]
This section was compiled from three sources.[28][29][30]
