Rating: 5/5
Review
Terrific stuff
This is a terrific recording of Mississippi John Hurt
playing live in 1966, shortly before his death at the age of 74.
Mississippi John Hurt was one of the truly great bluesmen
with quite a gentle vocal style, but it's his simply magnificent ragtime blues
guitar playing which marks him out. He
has no backing and the guitar work is made to sound so natural that you can be
deceived into thinking it's easy – until you try to play like he did. It's just brilliant stuff, and you can hear his
influence on the early folk revivalists including Dylan. (There's some interesting self-censorship, by
the way, which reflects the establishment attitudes of the times. In Candy Man, for example, some of the more
overtly suggestive lines about the Candy Man's stick are replaced with
"mmm-hmm" and "yeah, yeah."
It doesn't diminish the performance one bit and it's just the price of
getting more mainstream attention at the time, but I did think it interesting.)
The quality of the recording is very good and if you have
any interest at all in blues, ragtime or just in superb roots music in general,
don't hesitate. This is a record of a
genuine great, still at the top of his game.
It's fabulously enjoyable and very warmly recommended.
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