John Smith Hurt (March 8, 1893 – November 2, 1966), better known as Mississippi John Hurt, was an American country blues singer and guitarist. Raised in Avalon, Mississippi, Hurt taught himself to play the guitar around the age of nine.
He worked as a farmhand and sharecropper into the 1920s. His fast, highly syncopated style of playing was meant for dancing.
The film featured unseen film footage of Hurt performing and being interviewed, and radically improved restorations of his 1920s recordings.
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 Okeh Records as a prize for winning first place in a 1928 fiddle contest, he recommended Hurt to Okeh producer Tommy Rockwell.
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.
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 Okeh Records as a prize for winning first place in a 1928 fiddle contest, he recommended Hurt to Okeh producer Tommy Rockwell.
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. === 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.
Gaslight Memories: Mississippi John Hurt’s Influence on the 1960s Folk Scene and Beyond.
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.
When a copy of "Avalon Blues" was discovered in 1963, it led musicologist Dick Spottswood to locate Avalon in an atlas, and ask Tom Hoskins, who was traveling that way, to enquire after Hurt.
His performance at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival caused his star to rise in the folk revival occurring at that time.
It is parallel to RR2, the rural road on which he grew up. The American 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?", which he still frequently plays in live performances. The first track of John Fahey's 1968 solo acoustic guitar album Requia is "Requiem for John Hurt".
He was recorded by the Library of Congress in 1964.
John Smith Hurt (March 8, 1893 – November 2, 1966), better known as Mississippi John Hurt, was an American country blues singer and guitarist. Raised in Avalon, Mississippi, Hurt taught himself to play the guitar around the age of nine.
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 hospital at Grenada, Mississippi.
It is parallel to RR2, the rural road on which he grew up. The American 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?", which he still frequently plays in live performances. The first track of John Fahey's 1968 solo acoustic guitar album Requia is "Requiem for John Hurt".
His last recordings had been done at a hotel in New York City in February and July of that year, and 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.
It is parallel to RR2, the rural road on which he grew up. The American 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?", which he still frequently plays in live performances. The first track of John Fahey's 1968 solo acoustic guitar album Requia is "Requiem for John Hurt".
1 (Flyright Records, 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.
Acoustic Guitar Magazine, June 2018. ==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.
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