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Mississippi John Hurt

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Mississippi John Hurt

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John Hurt was born and lived most of his life in remote corner of Mississippi Delta country. By th time he passed away, he had touched a generation C folk music fans and influenced countless guitar player interested in fingerpicking styles. He had two separate careers as a professional musician, separated by 35 years, and both must have seemed a little like a dream to him. When he was in his middle thirties, a recording contract fell in his lap out of nowhere, taking him to Memphis and New York. Within a year, the Great Depression hit and he slipped back into obscurity. But blues aficionados rediscovered Hurt in the early 1960s and he toured the country to great popular acclaim until his death in 1966.

Hurt was born in Teoc in Carroll County, Mississippi sometime between early 1892 and 1894, though March 8, 1892 is usually given as his date of birth. As a child he moved to Avalon, Mississippi where he was raised with seven brothers and two sisters. Hurt attended school until the fourth grade, long enough to learn to read and write. He grew up in a family of music lovers, and around the time he was nine his mother gave him a guitar which he taught himself to play using an intricate fingerpicking style in which the thumb played rhythm on the bass strings and three fingers played melody or chords.

Around 1910, Hurt played his first public performances. These were most likely parties or informal get-togethers of friends and neighbors who gathered to listen to music and relax. Blues historian Stephen Calt points out that Hurt probably did not play at dances like most other Mississippi bluesmen often did. His guitar style was too intricate to provide the insistent rhythm needed for dancing, and his singing was too restrained to cut through the noise of a Saturday night juke joint on the Delta.

Discovered by Okeh
During his early adult life, Hurt worked first as a sharecropper, then as a day laborer, which included five months laying train track. There, it is believed, he learned railroad songs like "Spike Driver Blues." Around 1923 Willie Narmour, a white farmer in Avalon who played fiddle at local square dances, asked Hurt to play with him when his regular guitarist could not. This was a remarkable tribute to Hurt’s musical ability, considering the degree of racial segregation that existed in Mississippi at the time. A few years later, Narmour won a fiddling contest in Carroll County and attracted the attention of a scout for the Okeh record company, Tommy Rockwell.

Companies were combing the south, in the middle 1920s, looking for artists to record for the popular new medium of the phonograph. When Rockwell met Narmour in Avalon, he asked about other musicians in the area who might be good enough to make records. The fiddler told him about John Hurt and not long afterwards Narmour and Rockwell drove over to Hurt’s house to set up an audition. Hurt played a song. Halfway through the second, Rockwell told him to stop, he had heard enough. Hurt was invited to go to Memphis for a recording session. On February 14, 1928, John Hurt became Mississippi John Hurt. He recorded eight songs and that same year, two of them were released on Okeh 8560, "Frankie" and "Nobody’s Dirty Business."

What happened next is in dispute. Some writers say the record sold so well that Hurt was offered a second recording session; others say the record flopped, but that Rockwell was convinced that Hurt had something that would sell records. At any rate, in December 1928 John Hurt traveled to New York City where he recorded songs for five more 78s. Even though Hurt was in New York City for the first time in his life—it was only the second time he had traveled more than 20 miles from Avalon—even though he met Lonnie Johnson, the most popular blues guitarist in America, it was Christmas time and Hurt felt like a poor boy a long ways from home. He missed his wife, he missed Mississippi. In the last song recorded at the session, "Avalon Blues," he sings "Avalon’s my home-town/always on my mind." That song would have enormous repercussions later in Mississippi John Hurt’s life.

Bad Sales, Hard Times
Hurt’s records were a disappointment for Okeh, each selling only a few hundred copies. Some believe Okeh was ultimately responsible for their failure. First, they gave the records titles like "Candy Man Blues" and "Stack o’ Lee Blues," when the songs had nothing in common with the true Mississippi blues being invented just a few miles from Hurt’s front door. They were actually ragtime songs dating from an older folksong tradition. Second, because Hurt was nofsinging blues, because he came from the songster tradition, which was much closer to country music, he could have been popular among white audiences. Okeh, however, insisted upon listing his records in their "race" catalog of exclusively black artists.

It was all moot anyway. Less than a year after Hurt’s second recording session, the Great Depression hit America. The poor audiences at whom Hurt’s kind of music was aimed.black and white alike, could no longer afford frivolities like records. Hurt just settled down with Jessie Lee, his second wife, back in Avalon. He raised a family, found worked regularly, played guitar around town when he could and forgot about any career in music—and was forgotten by the rest of the world in return.

Interest in Mississippi John Hurt reawoke in the early 1950s following the release of Harry Smith’s monumental Anthology of American Folk Music. The six-record set included two Hurt songs "Frankie" and Spike Driver Blues." Like most of the musicians on the Anthology, Hurt was a mystery. In fact, most listeners, according to the notes included with the 1997 Anthology reissue, assumed that John Hurt was white. Guitar players, in particular, were fascinated with his fingerpicking style and struggled to learn the songs, first from the Anthology, and later off old 78 records that began resurfacing. According to one story, one of Andres Segovia’s students brought a record by Hurt for the master to hear. After listening to Hurt, Segovia reportedly asked who was playing the second guitar on the song. Hurt played solo on all his recordings.

Rediscovered at Avalon Home
In the early 1960s, two young folk musicians in Washington, D.C., Tom Hoskins and Mike Stewart, heard "Avalon Blues" on a tape a record collector had given them. What if there was a city called Avalon in Mississippi, they wondered. And what if Hurt still lived there? They couldn’t find Avalon on any contemporary maps, but the tiny town finally turned up in an atlas published in 1878. When they went to the Delta with their tape recorder, they discovered that Avalon wasn’t much more than a general store on the road between Grenada and Greenwood. They asked some men sitting in front of the store if they had ever heard of a Mississippi John Hurt. One pointed and said "A mile down that road, third mailbox up. Can’t miss it." When Hoskins and Stewart arrived, Hurt was out in the fields on his tractor. They introduced themselves, explained that they were interested in music, and pulled out their tape recorder.

From there Hurt’s second career in music snowballed quickly. Back in Washington, Hoskins released two albums of songs he had recorded at Hurt’s farm. Not long after, Hurt came to Washington to play local folk clubs. He was a smash at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival, and later the same year, at the Philadelphia Folk Festival. Suddenly, at age 71, Hurt was one of the top stars in the American folk music scene. For the next three years, he toured festivals and folk clubs throughout the country, released albums on the Piedmont and Vanguard labels—this time the records were very popular—and entranced fans with his broad repertoire of ballads, ragtime numbers, old pop tunes, and religious songs, his storytelling, and his gentle personality.

Hurt’s fingerpicking style is unusual among black players of his time. Only Elizabeth Cotten—another self-taught guitarist—used a similar technique. Nonetheless his playing has had an enormous impact on guitar players from the 1960s onward and echoes of his playing can be heard in the work of musicians like Leo Kottke and Stefan Grossman. John Fahey, a player who took many of Hurt’s techniques into uncharted, new realms, composed and recorded a moving tribute, "Requiem For Mississippi John Hurt," on his Vanguard album Requia. But Hurt’s influence pervades all guitar playing. When beginning guitarists first begin to fingerpick, almost invariably the first tunes they learn are Hurt’s, pieces like "Louis Collins" or "Stack O’ Lee Blues."

John Hurt was unfazed by the abrupt end of his first career as a professional musician in 1929; at the end of his life he seemed equally undaunted by the stardom that had burst upon him, out of nowhere as far as he was concerned. Once asked if he knew how good his music was he answered almost with embarrassment. "Yeah … I know it… and I been knowin’ it, but I never dreamed things would’ve turned out like they have … never dreamed it." Mississippi John Hurt died in Grenada Mississippi on November 2, 1966.

Selected discography
1928 Sessions, Yazoo 1965
Mississippi John Hurt Today! Vanguard (VSD 79220), 1966.
The Immortal Mississippi John Hurt, Vanguard (VSD 79248), 1967.
The Best Of Mississippi John Hurt, Vanguard (VSD 19/20), 1970.
Mississippi John Hurt Rediscovered, Vanguard, (79519-2) 1998.
Last Sessions Vanguard (VSD 79327).

Sources
Books
Eriewene, Michael, Vladimir Bogdano, Chris Woodstra, and Cub Koda. All Music Guide to the Blues, San Francisco: Miller Freeman Books, 1996.
Herzhaft, Gérard, Encyclopedia of the Blues, 2nd ed., Fayetteville, Arkansas: University of Arkansas Press, 1997.

Online
http://home.t-online.de/home/t_maria.wagner/jhurt.htm
http://www.eyeneer.com/America/Genre/Blues/Profiles/mississippi.john.html

Other
Calt, Stephen, Mississippi John Hurt, 1928 Sessions, liner notes.
Ward, Ed. Mississippi John Hurt Rediscovered, liner notes.
Additional materials provided by Vanguard Records.
AMG AllMusic Guide: Pop Artists:

Mississippi John Hurt

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  • Genres: Blues

Biography

No blues singer ever presented a more gentle, genial image than Mississippi John Hurt. A guitarist with an extraordinarily lyrical and refined fingerpicking style, he also sang with a warmth unique in the field of blues, and the gospel influence in his music gave it a depth and reflective quality unusual in the field. Coupled with the sheer gratitude and amazement that he felt over having found a mass audience so late in life, and playing concerts in front of thousands of people -- for fees that seemed astronomical to a man who had always made music a sideline to his life as a farm laborer -- these qualities make Hurt's recordings into a very special listening experience.

John Hurt grew up in the Mississippi hill country town of Avalon, population under 100, north of Greenwood, near Grenada. He began playing guitar in 1903, and within a few years was performing at parties, doing ragtime repertory rather than blues. As a farm hand, he lived in relative isolation, and it was only in 1916, when he went to work briefly for the railroad, that he got to broaden his horizons and his repertory beyond Avalon. In the early '20s, he teamed up with white fiddle player Willie Narmour, playing square dances.

Hurt was spotted by a scout for Okeh Records who passed through Avalon in 1927, who was supposed to record Narmour, and was signed to record after a quick audition. Of the eight sides that Hurt recorded in Memphis in February of 1928, only two were ever released, but he was still asked to record in New York late in 1928.

Hurt's dexterity as a guitarist, coupled with his plain-spoken nature, were his apparent undoing, at least as a popular blues artist, at the time. His playing was too soft and articulate, and his voice too plain to be taken up in a mass setting, such as a dance; rather, his music was best heard in small, intimate gatherings. In that sense, he was one of the earliest blues musicians to rely completely on the medium of recorded music as a vehicle for mass success; where the records of Furry Lewis or Blind Blake were mere distillations of music that they (presumably) did much better on-stage, in John Hurt's case the records were good representations of what he did best. Additionally, Hurt never regarded himself as a blues singer, preferring to let his relatively weak voice speak for itself with none of the gimmicks that he might've used, especially in the studio, to compensate. And he had no real signature tune with which he could be identified, in the way that Furry Lewis had "Kassie Jones" or "John Henry."

Not that Hurt didn't have some great numbers in his song bag: "Frankie," "Louis Collins," "Avalon Blues," "Candy Man Blues," "Big Leg Blues," and "Stack O' Lee Blues," were all brilliant and unusual as blues, in their own way, and highly influential on subsequent generations of musicians. They didn't sell in large numbers at the time, however, and as Hurt never set much store on a musical career, he was content to make his living as a hired hand in Avalon, living on a farm and playing for friends whenever the occasion arose.

Mississippi John Hurt might've lived and died in obscurity, if it hadn't been for the folk music revival of the late '50s and early '60s. A new generation of listeners and scholars suddenly expressed a deep interest in the music of America's hinterlands, not only in listening to it but finding and preserving it. A scholar named Tom Hoskins discovered that Mississippi John Hurt, who hadn't been heard from musically in over 35 years, was alive and living in Avalon, MS, and sought him out, following the trail laid down in Hurt's song "Avalon Blues." Their meeting was a fateful one; Hurt was in his 70s, and weary from a lifetime of backbreaking labor for pitifully small amounts of money, but his musical ability was intact, and he bore no ill-will against anyone who wanted to hear his music.

A series of concerts were arranged, including an appearance at the Newport Folk Festival, where he was greeted as a living legend. This opened up a new world to Hurt, who was grateful to find thousands, or even tens of thousands of people too young to have even been born when he made his only records up to that time, eager to listen to anything he had to sing or say. A tour of American universities followed as did a series of recordings: first in a relatively informal, non-commercial setting intended to capture him in his most comfortable and natural surroundings, and later under the auspices of Vanguard Records, with folk singer Patrick Sky producing.

It was 1965, and Mississippi John Hurt had found a mass audience for his songs 35 years late. He took the opportunity, playing concerts and making new records of old songs as well as material he'd never before laid down; whether he eventually put down more than a portion of his true repertory will probably never be clear, but Hurt did leave a major legacy of his and other peoples' songs, in a style that barely skipped a beat from his late-'20s Okeh sides.

As with many people to whom success comes late in life, certain aspects of the success were hard for him to absorb in stride; the money was more than he'd ever hoped to see, even if it wasn't much by the standards of a major pop star; 1,000 dollar concert fees were something he'd never even pondered having to deal with. What he did most easily was sing and play; Vanguard got out a new album, Today!, in 1966, from his first sessions for the label. Additionally, the tape of a concert that Hurt played at Oberlin College in April of 1965 was released under the title The Best of Mississippi John Hurt; the 21-song live album was just that, even if it wasn't made up of previously released work (more typical of a "best-of" album), a perfect record of a beautiful performance in which the man did old and new songs in the peak of his form. Hurt got in one more full album, The Immortal Mississippi John Hurt, released posthumously, but even better was the record assembled from his final sessions, Last Sessions, also issued after his death; these songs broke new lyrical ground, and showed Hurt's voice and guitar to be as strong as ever, just months before his death.

Mississippi John Hurt left behind a legacy unique in the annals of the blues, and not just in terms of music. A humble, hard-working man who never sought fame or fortune from his music, and who conducted his life in an honest and honorable manner, he also avoided the troubles that afflicted the lives of many of his more tragic fellow musicians. He was a pure musician, playing for himself and the smallest possible number of listeners, developing his guitar technique and singing style to please nobody but himself; and he suddenly found himself with a huge following, precisely because of his unique style. Unlike contemporaries such as Skip James, he felt no bitterness over his late-in-life mass success, and as a result continued to please and win over new listeners with his recordings until virtually the last weeks of his life. Nothing he ever recorded was less than inspired, and most of it was superb. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi
Wikipedia on Answers.com:

Mississippi John Hurt

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Mississippi John Hurt

Hurt making a recording for the Library of Congress in 1964.
Background information
Birth name John Smith Hurt
Born July 3, 1893(1893-07-03) or March 8, 1892(1892-03-08)
Teoc, Carroll County, Mississippi, United States
Origin Avalon, Mississippi
Died November 2, 1966(1966-11-02)
Grenada, Mississippi
Genres Country blues,
Delta blues,
Folk
Occupations 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[1][2] or March 8, 1892[3] — November 2, 1966) was an American country blues singer and guitarist.[4]

Raised in Avalon, Mississippi, Hurt taught himself how to play the guitar around age nine. Singing in a loud whisper, to a melodious finger-picked accompaniment,[5] he began to play local dances and parties while working as a sharecropper. He first recorded for Okeh Records in 1928, but these were commercial failures, and Hurt drifted out of the recording scene, where he continued his work as a farmer. After a man discovered a copy of one of his recordings, "Avalon Blues", which gave the location of his hometown, there became increased interest in his whereabouts. Tom Hoskins, a blues enthusiast, would be the first to locate Hurt in 1963. He convinced Hurt to relocate to Washington, D.C., where he was recorded by the Library of Congress in 1964. This rediscovery helped further the American folk music revival, which had led to the rediscovery of many other bluesmen of Hurt's era. Hurt entered the same university and coffeehouse concert circuit as his contemporaries, as well as other Delta blues musicians brought out of retirement. As well as playing concerts, he recorded several studio albums for Vanguard Records.

He died in Grenada, Mississippi. Material recorded by Hurt has been re-released by many record labels over the years (see discography); and his influence has extended over many generations of guitarists. Songs recorded by Hurt have been covered by Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia, Beck, Doc Watson, John McCutcheon, Taj Mahal, Bruce Cockburn, David Johansen, Bill Morrissey and Guthrie Thomas.

Contents

Biography

Early years

Born John Smith Hurt in Teoc,[6] Carroll County, Mississippi and raised in Avalon, Mississippi, he learned to play guitar at age nine. He was completely self-taught, playing his mother's boyfriend's guitar whenever he stayed over at her house. His style was not reminiscent of any other style being played at the time; it was the way Hurt "thought the guitar should sound". He spent much of his youth playing old time music for friends and dances, earning a living as a farmhand into the 1920s.[7] 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."[6] In 1923 he partnered with the fiddle player Willie Narmour as a substitute for his regular partner Shell Smith.[7]

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).[7] While in Memphis, Hurt recalled seeing "many, many blues singers ... Lonnie Johnson, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Bessie Smith, and lots, lots more."[6] 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.[6]

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.[5]

Rediscovery

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.[8] 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":[8]

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.[8] 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 1964 Newport Folk Festival saw his star rise amongst the new folk revival audience.[5] Before his death he played extensively in colleges, concert halls, coffee houses and also on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, as well as recording three further albums for Vanguard Records.[5] 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".[5]

Hurt's influence spanned several music genres including blues, 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.[7]

Hurt died of a heart attack in Grenada, Mississippi.[9]

Style

Hurt incorporated a fast, pick-less, syncopated fingerpicking style that he taught himself. He was influenced by very few people; but does recall an elderly, unrecorded, blues singer from that area, Rufus Hanks, who played twelve-string guitar and harmonica.[6] He also recalls listening to the country singer Jimmie Rodgers. Many of his songs were in very basic keys (C, G, D, F, etc.), his fingers picking notes within the chords. On occasion, Hurt would use an open tuning and a slide, as he did in his arrangement of "The Ballad of Casey Jones".[8][6]

Tributes

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.

Discography

NOTE: Sources for this section are as follows:[10][11][12][13]

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)

References

  1. ^ National Park Service
  2. ^ Encyclopædia Britannica
  3. ^ There is confusion about his date of birth, but the grave marker mentions this date.
  4. ^ "Trail of the Hellhound: Mississippi John Hurt". www.nps.gov. http://www.nps.gov/history/DELTA/BLUes/people/msjohn_hurt.htm. Retrieved 2008-05-29. 
  5. ^ a b c d e Russell, Tony (1997). The Blues - From Robert Johnson to Robert Cray. Dubai: Carlton Books Limited. pp. 121. ISBN 1-85868-255-X. 
  6. ^ a b c d e f Cohen, Lawrence. Linear notes to Avalon Blues: The Complete 1928 Okeh Recordings. Columbia/Legacy, CD, 1996
  7. ^ a b c d "Biography by Bruce Eder". Allmusic.com. http://www.allmusic.com/artist/p379/biography. Retrieved May 30, 2009. 
  8. ^ a b c d Dahl, Bill. Linear notes to D.C. Blues: The Complete Library of Congress Recordings, Vol. 1. Fuel 2000 Records, CD, 1998
  9. ^ Thedeadrcokstarsclub.com - accessed May 2009
  10. ^ "Mississippi John Hurt Discography". Wirz.de. http://www.wirz.de/music/hurtfrm.htm. Retrieved 2010-07-10. 
  11. ^ Dixon, Robert M.W.; Goodrich, John M.W.; Rye, Howard W. (1997). Blues & Gospel Records 1890–1943 (4th ed.). Clarendon Press. pp. 418–419. ISBN 0-19-816239-1. 
  12. ^ "Mississippi John Hurt Album Discography". Allmusic. http://www.allmusic.com/artist/p379. Retrieved 2010-07-10. 
  13. ^ "Mississippi John Hurt Compilation Album Discography". Allmusic. http://www.allmusic.com/artist/p379. Retrieved 2010-07-10. 

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Mississippi John Hurt

Further reading

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

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