"Avalon Blues", or how John Hurt came to be rediscovered

According to the latest census, Carroll County, Mississippi is home to about ten thousand residents, less than half of the number that inhabited the county a century ago. By the standards of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth centuries, it was a remote place off of the beaten path. J. S. McCain had a sizable plantation spread there, near the town of Teoc. It was from there that McCain's son, John Sidney, nicknamed "Slew", departed for the life of a Navy man. If this were a post on a political site, I might riff on this fact, but it's not. Luckily for me, the other notable name from the county is that of a musician, the great Mississippi John Hurt.

John Smith Hurt was born in Teoc about 1893 and raised ten miles away in Avalon. Enamored by the guitar of one William Henry Carson, a suitor of his teacher, the nine-year-old John Hurt was determined to learn the instrument. Practicing on Carson's guitar whenever able, he progressed in secret, though the young boy recognized that in order to progress as far as he desired, he needed his own guitar. After much pestering, Mary Hurt bought her eighth child a secondhand guitar for a dollar and a half. From there, young John, removed from the music scene even in adjoining counties, set about getting his guitar to sound the way he heard it in his head. The guitar technique that Hurt ended up stumbling into was an anomaly. It wasn't in the style of Delta heavyweights like Charlie Patton or Son House, having more in common with the Piedmont region, the styles of Blind Blake and Blind Boy Fuller. It was a complex, three-fingered method with the thumb plucking bass lines and the index and middle fingers picking out intricate melodies. His voice, too, was anomalous, drawing the listener in with its warmth rather than its sheer power. His music drew as much from folk, country and Celtic music as it did blues, making John Hurt one-of-a-kind.

John Hurt settled into a type of average life for a young African-American in Mississippi in the early twentieth century. He worked mostly as a farmhand, stuck in the sharecropping rut that gripped so many Mississippians of the period. He married, had two children, separated from his wife, took up with another woman in a common-law marriage and had a third child. All the while, he kept up on the guitar, attracting the attention of any who passed through Avalon. When the white fiddler Willie Narmour got the chance to record for OKeh Records, he was asked to recommend other Carroll County residents for the label to record. Without any hesitation, Narmour named Hurt and the label signed off on a recording session after Hurt passed his audition.

Aged thirty-five, John Hurt made his first recordings in Memphis on February 14, 1928. Eight songs were recorded*, with "Nobody's Dirty Business" and "Frankie" released on a 78 shortly thereafter, the label tacking on "Mississippi" to the man's name in spite of the fact that his technique was a far cry from the typical Mississippian's. The record sold well enough for OKeh to sign off of another session, this time in New York City in late December. Among the twelve songs** Hurt cut in New York in December was "Avalon Blues". For a man who had rarely ventured too far away from his home, two weeks in New York City had inspired an ode to homesickness that, little could he have known, would help aide in his rediscovery. The Arthurian legend of Avalon probably didn't factor into Hurt's mind, but keeping that in mind does allow the song to be viewed in a more universal light. "Avalon Blues" was one of ten songs that would be released across five 78s over the next few years.

None of these five records were great sellers. After the Depression hit the next year, numerous record companies- including OKeh- went out of business, not that this mattered much to John Hurt. Having seen Memphis and New York, Hurt returned to Avalon, spending the next few decades working on farms, for the Works Progress Administration and on the railroad. He played local parties and fish fries whenever he chose, but by the early 1960s, he no longer owned a guitar. Unbeknownst to the old man, his music was experiencing a revival of sorts. "Frankie" and "Spike Driver Blues" were part of the Anthology of American Folk Music, folk archivists passed around his original 78s. Many simply assumed that Hurt had died owing to the long passage of time. Amateur musicologist Tom Hoskins, however, was determined to prove otherwise after hearing "Avalon Blues".

Though he had never heard of Avalon, Mississippi, Hoskins was determined to find if it really existed. Scouring atlases, he finally found Avalon in an 1898 Rand-McNally atlas that documented the town as a blip between Greenwood and Grenada. Upon reaching Avalon's country store, he was pleasantly shocked to hear that Hurt was still alive and still lived in town. After Hurt showed the young man that he still had the ability to play guitar, the two entered into an agreement, and shortly thereafter, Hurt, his common-law wife and two of his eighteen grandchildren moved to Washington, D.C., with Hoskins taking control of the business side of Hurt's career.

Over the next few years, Hurt recorded two albums for Piedmont Records and made a number of recordings the Library of Congress, played coffeehouses and folk festivals and even made a television appearance or two. Bob Dylan and Dave van Ronk worshipped at his feet. John Sebastian cribbed a group name from the lyrics of "Coffee Blues". The relationship with Hoskins turned sour and Hurt sued to get out of his contract. Hurt then signed up with Vanguard Records, who recorded and released the live album The Best of Mississippi John Hurt, a July 1965 concert at Oberlin College in Ohio. Tiring of life in the big city, Hurt returned to Mississippi after two years in Washington, settling in the larger city of Grenada, north of Avalon.

In February 1966, Hurt recorded his first studio album for Vanguard, Today!. Further sessions in July 1966 resulted in The Immortal Mississippi John Hurt, issued in 1967. A third album issued in 1972, Last Sessions, would be pulled from the outtakes of both albums. After the July session, Hurt returned to Grenada for the last time. On November 2, the old man passed on, the victim of a heart attack. He was buried in a secluded spot in Avalon not far from where he had lived for nearly his entire life.

Avalon's a virtual ghost town now, a victim of the changing times. If not for the Mississippi John Hurt Museum, an historical marker for Hurt and an abandoned storefront or two, little more than a sign would mark it. We can be thankful that among the songs that John Hurt cut in New York was an ode to homesickness, without it, he certainly wouldn't have ever been rediscovered. There's a kind of certain magic in the music of Mississippi John Hurt, the songs of a man who played music for the love of it. Avalon may be practically gone, but the song and the man who immortalized it live on.


*=Of the eight, only the two released on 78 remain. The other six, "Monday Morning Blues", "Shiverlie Blues", "Casey Jones", "Blessed Be The Name", "Meeting on the Old Camp Ground" and "Sliding Delta" are lost.
**=While the December 21 outtake "Big Leg Blues" exists, "Window Light Blues", recorded on December 28, is lost.