2025 Charity Shop Purchases # 62 - Mississippi John Hurt 1928 Sessions.
It is remarkable to think that these songs by Bluesman Mississipi John Hurt were first recorded almost 100 years ago.
In the AllMusic Review reviewer Michael Erlewine writes:
The 13 original 1928 recordings of Hurt. Justifiably legendary, with gentle grace and power on these understated vocal and fingerpicking masterpieces. These are the ones to hear, although all Hurt is worth listening to. He's not wrong there.
Here is another review courtesy of Bear Tree Records
The version above which I picked up in Wigtown is the 1990 CD on Yazoo Records which includes some interesting sleeve notes commencing with the words that listening to these recordings is to visit an America that no longer exists and can only be imperfectly imagined. It is to fly backwards a full fifty years (longer now) not to a recording studio, but to the hill country town of Avalon, Mississippi which had no significance beyond its own miniscule boundaries.
A history lesson set to music. Terrific stuff.
Mississippi John Hurt - Nobody's Dirty Business
Mississippi John Hurt - Got the Blues, Can't Be Satisfied
I remember when they first came out. Stilll have the original wax cylinders somewhere. Created a sensation at the local Lyons Tea House.
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