AUDIO REVIEW: Mississippi John Hurt: Vanguard Visionaries

Vanguard SKU 73142
(vanguardrecords.com)

The blues legend Mississippi John Hurt (1893-1966) worked nearly all of his life as a sharecropper and laborer in the hill-country town of Avalon, Mississippi. The 1960s folk-music revival suddenly revealed him to be a past master of singing and guitar-playing as well. An unusually peaceable man in the rough-and-tumble blues world, Hurt charmed everyone with his good humor. As one fan recalled, "He just agreed politely with everyone and played beautiful guitar." More important, he sang and played with amiable, sweet-hearted tenderness, secure in the blessed assurance of his own faith. Addressing the reasons for human suffering and illness in songs like "Farther Along," Hurt sings: "Farther along we will understand why/ Cheer up, my brother, live in the sunshine/ We'll understand it all by and by." Anticipating heaven's "beautiful gate" and meeting "those gone on before us," the singer forecasts an all-comprehending future for mankind. As someone whose lifelong occupation was the backbreaking toil of harvesting cotton and corn, his interpretation of "Since I've Laid My Burden Down" offers a special presentiment of paradise: "No more sickness, no more sorrow, since I've laid my burden down." etched on our memories.