Mississippi John Hurt - Avalon Blues : Complete 1928 Okeh Recordings
Mississippi John Hurt is a blues singer with a tranquil vocals and a guitar style that is acknowledged to be among the most complex in American music.
Hurt recorded 13 country-blues songs for the Okeh Electric Records Company in 1928. Although there are recordings made over thirty years later, these tracks are his greatest recorded works and the sound quality is surprisingly good. The guitar work has an almost uncontrolled energy and it delivers some exquisite and haunting songs.
Hurt plays a range of songs, some humorous, some sacred, along with some blues numbers. Among my favourite tracks are Ain’t No Tellin, Louis Collins, Avalon and Nobody`s Dirty Business.
Hurt was eventually found because he recorded the song Avalon Blues and listeners to it in the 1960’s, went to Avalon, Mississippi, hoping that to find him. At that point he didn’t even own a guitar, but they took him to Washington, D.C. where his musical career resumed on the burgeoning folk circuit.
His guitar playing has influenced Bob Dylan, Taj Mahal, Bonnie Raitt, JJ Cale along with WA’s Peter Woodward and Steve Pigram.
Highly recommended.
CD Released October 1996
Label: Sony
