A couple of days ago I mentioned buying vinyl at Real Groovy in Auckland, after finding a bag from 25 years ago. When I took out this album for review I saw that it still had their price and grading sticker on it !! $12.95 in 1995 with a 'Fairly Good' quality sticker. I have to say their grading is VERY strict, this album is clean, sharp and sounds great.
The album title is, sadly, accurate. The recordings were made at the Manhattan Towers Hotel NY in Feb 1966 and at Vanguards Studios NY in July 1966. John passed away in November that year aged 73.
This review almost didn't exist, because John Smith Hurt almost faded into history without making any impact at all. He was born in 1893 and raised in Avalon, Mississippi. He taught himself to play guitar while working as a farm hand and played at local dances. Working on the railways for a while helped to expand his exposure to more music and when a recording scout for Okeh Records came to town in 1927 he was signed up. Unfortunately, fame eluded him. After recording around a dozen or more songs only 2 were released and they failed to sell all that well. That didn't bother John too much, he went back to his farm work and played again for dances and friends.
That may have been the end of the story if not for a resurgence in folk music history and the source of blues in the 50's and early 60's. There was a realisation that these early songs and pioneer singers needed to be acknowledged and if possible, found and recorded.
When musicologist Dick Spottswood found a copy of one of John's old 78's in 1963 he asked Tom Hoskins to try to find him. Taking John's stage name of 'Mississippi' and his record 'Avalon Blues' as his roadmap, Tom Hoskins tracked him down. When he arrived in Avalon, the first person he asked showed him where John's cabin was.
After recording some songs John was persuaded to travel to share his voice and talent, 35 years after he'd given up a musical career as a lost cause. Between his rediscovery in 1963 and his death in 1966, Mississippi John Hurt brought life to a musical history long dead.
He appeared at the Newport Folk Festival, recorded 3 albums for Vanguard (I used to have another of his LP's, 'Today!' but who knows where I left it) and he was also recorded for the Library of Congress.
As mentioned, this album is his last set of recordings, and the world should be grateful for those 3 short years that gave John Smith Hurt back to us for a while.
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