John Smith Hurt (March 8, 1893 – November 2, 1966), known as Mississippi John Hurt, was an American country blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Hurt was raised in

Avalon, Mississippi Avalon is an unincorporated community in Carroll County, Mississippi, United States. Avalon is located on the former Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad and was at one time home to a general store. A post office first began operation under the ...

and taught himself to play the guitar around the age of nine. He worked as a

sharecropper Sharecropping is a legal arrangement with regard to agricultural land in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land. Sharecropping has a long history and there are a wide range ...

and began playing at dances and parties, singing to a melodious

fingerpicked Fingerstyle guitar is the technique of playing the guitar or bass guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips, fingernails, or picks attached to fingers, as opposed to flatpicking (plucking individual notes with a single plectr ...

accompaniment. His first recordings, made for

Okeh Records Okeh Records () is an American record label founded by the Otto Heinemann Phonograph Corporation, a phonograph supplier established in 1916, which branched out into phonograph records in 1918. The name was spelled "OkeH" from the initials of Ott ...

in 1928, were commercial failures, and he continued to work as a farmer.

Dick Spottswood Richard K. "Dick" Spottswood (born April 17, 1937) is an American musicologist and author from Maryland, United States who has catalogued and been responsible for the reissue of many thousands of recordings of vernacular music in the United States. ...

and Tom Hoskins, a blues enthusiast, located Hurt in 1963 and persuaded him to move to Washington, D.C. He was recorded by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

in 1964. This helped further the

American folk music revival The American folk music revival began during the 1940s and peaked in popularity in the mid-1960s. Its roots went earlier, and performers like Josh White, Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Big Bill Broonzy, Billie Holiday, Richard Dyer-Benn ...

, 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 Vanguard Recording Society is an American record label set up in 1950 by brothers Maynard and Seymour Solomon in New York City. It was a primarily classical label at its peak in the 1950s and 1960s, but also has a catalogue of recordings by a n ...

. Hurt returned to

Grenada, Mississippi Grenada is a city in Grenada County, Mississippi, Grenada County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 13,092 at the United States Census, 2010, 2010 census. It is the county seat of Grenada County, Mississippi, Grenada County. History ...

, 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 Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...

Dave Van Ronk David Kenneth Ritz Van Ronk (June 30, 1936 – February 10, 2002) was an American folk singer. An important figure in the American folk music revival and New York City's Greenwich Village scene in the 1960s, he was nicknamed the "Mayor of Mac ...

Jerry Garcia Jerome John Garcia (August 1, 1942 – August 9, 1995) was an American musician best known for being the principal songwriter, lead guitarist, and a vocalist with the rock band Grateful Dead, which he co-founded and which came to prominence ...

Beck Beck David Hansen (born Bek David Campbell; July 8, 1970) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He rose to fame in the early 1990s with his Experimental music, experimental and Lo-fi music, lo-fi style, and became ...

, Doc Watson, John McCutcheon,

Taj Mahal The Taj Mahal (; ) is an Islamic ivory-white marble mausoleum on the right bank of the river Yamuna in the Indian city of Agra. It was commissioned in 1631 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan () to house the tomb of his favourite wife, Mu ...

, Bruce Cockburn, David Johansen,

Bill Morrissey Bill Morrissey (November 25, 1951 – July 23, 2011) was a Grammy-nominated American folk singer-songwriter based in New Hampshire. Early life Morrissey was born in Hartford, Connecticut. Growing up in Connecticut and Massachusetts, he starte ...

, Gillian Welch,

The Be Good Tanyas The Be Good Tanyas are a Canadian folk music group formed in Vancouver in 1999. Their influences include folk music, folk, country music, country, and bluegrass music, bluegrass. The style of music they perform can be referred to as alt-country ...

, Josh Ritter,

Chris Smither William Christopher Smither (born November 11, 1944) is an American folk/blues singer, guitarist, and songwriter. His music draws deeply from the blues, American folk music, and modern poets and philosophers. Early life, influences and educat ...

, Guthrie Thomas, Parsonsfield, and Rory Block.

Biography

Early years

Hurt was born in

Teoc Teoc is an unincorporated community in Carroll County, Mississippi and is part of the Greenwood, Mississippi micropolitan area approximately northeast of Greenwood on Teoc Road along Teoc Creek. History Located about eight miles northwest of No ...

,Cohen, Lawrence (1996). Liner notes to ''Avalon Blues: The Complete 1928 Okeh Recordings''. Columbia/

Legacy In law, a legacy is something held and transferred to someone as their inheritance, as by will and testament. Personal effects, family property, marriage property or collective property gained by will of real property. Legacy or legacies may refer ...

CD.

Carroll County, Mississippi Carroll County is a County (United States), county in the U.S. state of Mississippi. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 9,998. Its county seats are Carrollton, Mississippi, Carrollton and Vaiden, Mississippi, Vai ...

, and raised in

. 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. As a youth, he played

old-time music Old-time music is a genre of North American folk music. It developed along with various North American folk dances, such as square dancing, clogging, and buck dancing. It is played on acoustic instruments, generally centering on a combination ...

for friends and at dances. He worked as a farmhand and

into the 1920s. Hurt's fast, highly

syncopated In music, syncopation is a variety of rhythms played together to make a piece of music, making part or all of a tune or piece of music off-beat. More simply, syncopation is "a disturbance or interruption of the regular flow of rhythm": a "place ...

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." In 1923, he played with the fiddle player Willie Narmour as a substitute for Narmour's regular partner, Shell Smith.

First recordings

When Narmour got a chance to record for

as a prize for winning first place in a 1928 fiddle contest, he recommended Hurt to Okeh producer Tommy Rockwell. After auditioning "Monday Morning Blues" at his home, Hurt took part in two recording sessions, in Memphis and New York City. While in Memphis, he recalled seeing "many, many blues singers ... Lonnie Johnson,

Blind Lemon Jefferson Lemon Henry "Blind Lemon" Jefferson (September 24, 1893 – December 19, 1929)Some sources indicate Jefferson was born on October 26, 1894. was an American blues and gospel singer-songwriter and musician. He was one of the most popular blues sing ...

Bessie Smith Bessie Smith (April 15, 1894 – September 26, 1937) was an American blues singer widely renowned during the Jazz Age. Nicknamed the " Empress of the Blues", she was the most popular female blues singer of the 1930s. Inducted into the Rock and ...

, and lots, lots more." Hurt described his first recording session: Hurt attempted further negotiations with Okeh to record again, but his records were commercial failures. Okeh went out of business during the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

, and Hurt returned to Avalon and obscurity, working as a sharecropper and playing at local parties and dances.

Rediscovery and death

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.Dahl, Bill (1998). Liner notes to ''D.C. Blues: The Complete Library of Congress Recordings, Vol. 1''.

Fuel 2000 Records Fuel 2000 is an independent record label, formed in 1994 as part of the Fuel Label Group. One of the biggest independent record labels, it has amassed a catalog with over 20,000 master recordings. Since its inception, the company has released ove ...

CD. When a copy of "Avalon Blues" was discovered in 1963, it led musicologist

to locate Avalon, Mississippi, in an

atlas An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of maps of Earth or of a region of Earth. Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats. In addition to presenting geographic ...

, and ask Tom Hoskins, who was traveling that way, to enquire after Hurt. Upon locating Hurt, Hoskins persuaded him to perform several songs, to ensure that he was genuine. 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 Piedmont Records is an American independent record label, set up in the early 1960s by Dick Spottswood. Piedmont Records issued - among others - the first recordings after their 'rediscovery' of Mississippi John Hurt and Robert Wilkins. See als ...

. His performance at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival caused his star to rise in the folk revival occurring at that time. Soon after, in 1964, he recorded live for radio in Massachusetts with

Skip James Nehemiah Curtis "Skip" James (June 9, 1902October 3, 1969) was an American Delta blues singer, guitarist, pianist and songwriter. AllMusic stated: "This emotional, lyrical performer was a talented blues guitarist and arranger with an impressive ...

. 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

. Much of his repertoire was also recorded for the

. His fans particularly liked the

ragtime Ragtime, also spelled rag-time or rag time, is a musical style that flourished from the 1890s to 1910s. Its cardinal trait is its syncopated or "ragged" rhythm. Ragtime was popularized during the early 20th century by composers such as Scott ...

songs " Salty Dog" and "Candy Man" and the blues

ballad A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or ''ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...

s "Spike Driver Blues" (a variant of "John Henry") and "Frankie". Hurt's influence spanned several music genres, including blues, spirituals,

country A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. It may be a sovereign state or make up one part of a larger state. For example, the country of Japan is an independent, sovereign state, while the ...

, 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 of a heart attack on November 2, 1966, at a hospital in

. 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''.

Style

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 A twelve-string guitar (or 12-string guitar) is a steel-string guitar with 12 strings in six courses, which produces a thicker, more ringing tone than a standard six-string guitar. Typically, the strings of the lower four courses are tuned in o ...

and harmonica. According to the music critic

Robert Christgau Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most well-known and influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and ...

, "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

50 Mississippi John Hurt Museum, Avalon, MS

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. The singer-songwriter

Tom Paxton Thomas Richard Paxton (born October 31, 1937) is an American folk singer-songwriter who has had a music career spanning more than fifty years. In 2009, Paxton received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

, who met Hurt and played on the same bill with him at the Gaslight in

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

around 1963, wrote and recorded a song about him in 1977, "Did You Hear John Hurt?". 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 ''The Great Santa Barbara Oil Slick'' is a live album by American fingerstyle guitarist and composer John Fahey, released posthumously in 2004. History ''The Great Santa Barbara Oil Slick'' consists of previously unreleased live recordings from t ...

'', 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. The British folk and blues artist

Wizz Jones Raymond Ronald Jones (born 25 April 1939), better-known as Wizz Jones, is an English acoustic guitarist, singer and songwriter. He was born in Thornton Heath, Surrey, England and has been performing since the late 1950s and sound recording an ...

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". 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''. The film featured footage of Hurt performing and being interviewed, and improved restorations of his 1920s recordings. Director Bernard MacMahon stated that Hurt "was the inspiration for ''American Epic''". Hurt's life was profiled in the accompanying book, '' American Epic: The First Time America Heard Itself''. In 2023, ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...

'' ranked Hurt at number 159 on its list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.

Discography

This section was compiled from three sources.

78-rpm releases

* " Frankie" / "Nobody's Dirty Business" (

, 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'' (

, PLP 13157), 1963 * ''Worried Blues,'' live recordings (Piedmont Records, PLP 13161), 1964 * '' Today!'' (

, VSD-79220), 1966 * ''The Immortal Mississippi John Hurt'' (Vanguard Records, VSD-79248), 1967 * ''The Best of Mississippi John Hurt'', live recording from Oberlin College, April 15, 1965 (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'', vol. 1 (

Flyright Records Flyright Records is a British record label incorporated in 1970 by Mike Leadbitter, Simon Napier, and Bruce Bastin. It specializes in blues by British musicians, though it issued some American jazz discs, including Ralph Sutton and Hoagy Carmic ...

, FLYLP 553), 1980 * ''Avalon Blues: The Library of Congress Recordings'', vol. 2 (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'', vol. 3 (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 Yazoo Records is an American record label founded in the mid-1960s by Nick Perls. It specializes in early American blues, country, jazz, and other rural American genres collectively known as roots music. History The first five releases (L 1001 ...

, L 1065), 1979 * ''Satisfying Blues'' ( Collectables Records, VCL 5529), 1995 * ''Avalon Blues: The Complete 1928 Okeh Recordings'' (

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...

, 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 * '' American Epic: The Best of Mississippi John Hurt'' (Lo-Max /

Sony Legacy Legacy Recordings is an American record label that is a division of Sony Music. Formed in 1990 after Sony's acquisition of CBS Records, Legacy originally handled the archives of Sony Music-owned labels Columbia Records and Epic Records. In ...

Third Man Fielding in the sport of cricket is the action of fielders in collecting the ball after it is struck by the striking batter, to limit the number of runs that the striker scores and/or to get a batter out by either catching a hit ball befo ...

, TMR-459), 2017

Notes

References

External links

Mississippi John Hurt Foundation
official website, includes information about the annual Mississippi John Hurt Music Festival in Avalon, Mississippi.
Mississippi John Hurt Museum
official website.
Mississippi John Hurt News
Website run by Hurt's grandnephew Fred Bolden, with forums and discussions open to the public.

* *

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

* *
Mississippi John Hurt's "Stackolee"
Recording, sheet music, and guitar tab. {{DEFAULTSORT:Hurt, Mississippi John 1890s births 1966 deaths American folk singers American blues guitarists American male guitarists Blues musicians from Mississippi Blues revival musicians American blues singer-songwriters Delta blues musicians Country blues musicians Country blues singers American fingerstyle guitarists Okeh Records artists Deaths from heart disease People from Carroll County, Mississippi Songster musicians Vanguard Records artists 20th-century American guitarists Singer-songwriters from Mississippi Guitarists from Mississippi African-American male singer-songwriters American male singer-songwriters African-American guitarists 20th-century African-American male singers 20th-century American male singers 20th-century American singers Year of birth uncertain