Mississippi John Hurt: "Here Am I, Oh Lord, Send Me (Don't You Hear My Saviour Calling?)"

Mississippi John Hurt (July 3, 1893 - November 2, 1966), was born John Smith Hurt in Teoc, Mississippi, and was raised in Avalon. Hurt learned to play guitar at age 9. He spent much of his youth playing old time music for friends and dances, earning a living as a farm hand into the 1920's. In 1923, he partnered with the fiddle player Willie Narmour, as a substitute for his regular partner Shell Smith. When Narmour got a chance to record for Okeh Records, as a prize for winning first place in a 1928 fiddle contest, Narmour recommended John Hurt to Okeh Records producer Tommy Rockwell. After auditioning "Monday Morning Blues" at his home, he took part in two recording sessions, one in Memphis and one in New York City. The "Mississippi" tag was added by Okeh as a sales gimmick. After the commercial failure of the resulting records, and Okeh Records going out of business during the Great Depression, Hurt returned to Avalon and obscurity, working as a sharecropper and playing local parties and dances. In 1963, however, a folk musicologist, Tom Hoskins, inspired by the recordings, was able to locate Hurt near Avalon, Mississippi. Hurt was shocked to see that someone remembered his 1928 recordings that had brought him only twenty dollars a song. Seeing that Hurt's guitar playing skills were still intact, Hoskins encouraged him to move to Washington, D.C. and begin performing on a wider stage. Hurt's performance at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival saw his star rise amongst the new folk and blues revival audience. He displayed his talents as storyteller, entertainer, and singer, and overwhelmed the public with his outstanding mastery of the guitar. Before his death, he played extensively in colleges, concert halls, coffee houses, and on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, as well as recording three further albums for Vanguard Records. Mississippi John Hurt's quiet dignity, humor, superb guitar style, and his tender and expressive voice made him the most popular artist of traditional country blues rediscovered by the public in the sixties. His influence has spanned several music genres including blues, country, bluegrass, folk, and contemporary rock and roll. Hurt died in November 1966, from a heart attack, in Grenada, Mississippi.

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Music

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• Mississippi John Hurt
• Here Am I Oh Lord Send Me