Avalon Blues: The Complete 1928 Okeh Recordings

Like jazz, the blues never die. There are festivals, radio shows, magazines, labels and reissues like this CD, turning on new fans to the legendary Mississippi John Hurt.

A self-taught musician, he was discovered in Mississippi and recorded for the Okeh label in Memphis. The success of these 1928 sides brought him to New York City for more sessions. Unable to sustain his brief initial success, he returned to live quietly in Mississippi. He was rediscovered in the 1960s, when his early records were collectors' items. He recorded, played folk clubs and festivals, and enjoyed an all too brief resurgence before his death in 1966.

His warm delivery and easygoing guitar style was a counterpoint to the often harsh life he sang about. From songs about love gone wrong (Frankie), back-breaking labor (Spike Driver Blues), to gospel tunes, Hurt was a clear-eyed observer. How ironic it must have been to go to New York and record a song about missing a small town!

This CD is remastered with liner notes by reissue producer and blues writer Lawrence Cohn, and classic photos by David Gahr.

-Richard Antone

Mississippi John Hurt's latter-day recordings after his rediscovery have somewhat obscured the importance of these debut sides -- the ones that made his rediscovery an idea initially worth pursuing. Archival recordings such as Avalon Blues: The Complete 1928 Okeh Recordings are the collector's items that made his rep in the first place, and stand as some of the most poetic and beautiful of all country blues recordings. Hurt's playing is sheer musical perfection, with a keen sense of chord melody structure to make his bouncy, rhythmic execution of it sound both elegant and driving. Mississippi John's voice -- he was 36 at the time of these recordings -- was already a warm and friendly one, imbued with the laid-back wistfulness that would earmark his rediscovery recordings half-a-lifetime later. His best-known songs -- his adaptions of "Frankie (& Johnny)" and "Stack O' Lee," "Avalon Blues," "Nobody's Dirty Business," "Candy Man Blues" -- are all accounted for in their original incarnations here, and the NoNoiser remastering on this collection is superb. Mississippi John Hurt would go on to re-record this material for other labels in the '60s with fine results, but these are the originals -- the ones that much of his justifiable reputation rests on. ~ Cub Koda, All Music Guide