Next up in the Since The Devil Is Gone I Mostly Feel Lonely series at Monarch is Michael Hurley, making his second appearance in Berlin in little over a year so fo rme it’s like christmas, birthday and christmas all in one go.
A singular talent, Hurley was recording back when our Dad’s weren’t even able to have a twinkle in their eye let alone to have even met your mother yet. A free spirit who has never wavered from his own chosen path as an artist, variously making a living painting houses, farming, selling his own paintings and possibly now even from his music. I count myself among those who have the pleasure of discovering his records thanks to the Gnomonsong label who released his great Ida Con Snock album in 2009. The reissues have been piling into the record shops over the past couple of years, each as good as the next and too many to mention here.
Mr. Hurley’s songbook is one of the most important living, walking, talking, singing, playing bodies of work in Northern American culture. Ever since 1965 up until now, he has consistently unleashed a string of records in such labels as the seminal and anthological Smithsonian Folkways Records (his debut record First Songs was recorded on the same reel-to-reel machine that taped Leadbelly’s Last Sessions), and among many others his 1976 LP Have Moicy, a collaboration with the Unholy Modal Rounders Jeffrey Frederick The Clamtones, which was named “the greatest folk album of the rock era” by The Village Voice and among the top ten for the decade selected by Rolling Stone magazine.
Michael Hurley’s influence in today’s american music is immense and his repertoire has been lauded, visited and consequentially widespread by such people as Cat Power in both her albums “Covers Records” and “You are Free” Violent Femmes, Vetiver, Espers just to name a few. Mr. Hurley is still very much active and constantly touring in the States, and this is his comeback after a very successful short trip to Europe last year. Michael has a new record out called “Back Home With Drifting Woods”, which was released on Mississippi Records in 2012.
Here’s Tea Song from his First Songs record, his first ever recording:
