CD of the Week – Avalon Blues: The Complete 1928 OKeh Recordings – Mississippi John Hurt

Very simply, this is some of the best music ever recorded.

Born in 1892, John Smith Hurt was already 36 years old when he recorded these 12 sides for OKeh Records in 1928. He was an outstanding, but rather unusual, delta blues musician who did not employ the loud and percussive guitar playing required in the bustling juke joints. Hurt instead sang and played as he lived – quietly and simply. But profoundly. 

Given the nickname “Mississippi” by OKeh Record company exectutives, Hurt is known for songs like Casey Jones and Candyman but it is Stack ‘O Lee Blues that became his hallmark. Stack ‘O Lee is a song based on actual events surrounding the murder of William Lyon in 1895 by “Stag” Lee Sheldon near St. Louis. This song or some variation thereof (Stagger Lee, Stagolee, Stackerlee, Stack-a-Lee) has been recorded by a seemingly endless variety of artists. Hurt’s version, with the simple (but difficult) fingerpicked guitar part, has come to be regarded as the definitive version:

In many ways, John Hurt could be looked at as the polar opposite of a figure like Robert Johnson – all youth and brashness, surrounded by mystery. Hurt played his exquisite fingerstyle ballads for friends and family at neighborhood picnics and church dinners in and around Avalon Mississippi. There were no rumors about him – he didn’t sleep in a graveyard, he didn’t sell his soul to the devil, he didn’t drink to excess and he wasn’t poisoned. Other than an unconventional domestic arrangement, he led the quiet life of a poor southern farmer and played his music as a hobby.

In fact, the only mystery that ever attached itself to Mr. Hurt’s name was the question of what became of him after these 1928 recording sessions. The records sold poorly and OKeh folded during the great depression. Afterward, Hurt faded into obscurity. The 78 RPM records, though, became highly sought after in the 1950’s as young, white folkies discovered Hurt’s music.

In 1963, a musicologist named Tom Hoskins tracked down John Hurt near his hometown in Mississippi, using the song “Avalon Blues” as a clue. Hurt, still playing and singing regularly, was thrust into the Folk music boom of the time. He earned rave reviews at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival, toured the country, made three albums for Vanguard Records and even appeared on The Tonight Show.

There are very few films of Mr. Hurt playing and singing – this, from Pete Seeger’s Rainbow Quest, is one of the best:

John Hurt died in 1966 and is buried in Grenada, Mississippi. His legacy lives on in the influence he had on Country, Rock, Folk and Blues music as well as in the museum and non-profit foundationoperated by his descendants.