Since yuo asked: Missisppi John Hurt was sort of a songster, and an incredible fingerpicker, who played old songs, blues songs, folk songs, minstrel songs, some ragtime stuff, some gospel – he was a farmer and a sharecropper, recorded a few sides in about 1928, and, except for playing at local front porches, parties and dances around Avalon, Mississppi, where he grew up, pretty much disappeared from the public music scene for the next three-and-a-half decades, spending his life working the land. He was rediscovered in 1963, still in Avalon, and recorded quite a bit before he passed in 1966. He was a gentle and genial man with a warm, honeyed, honest voice, almost grandfatherly – and a dexterity on the guitar pretty much undiminished into his 70's – that can't help but make me smile every time I hear him. Some of my favorite songs of his: "Frankie," "Avalon Blues," "Candy Man Blues," "Stack O' Lee Blues," "Creole Belle," "Make Me a Pallet on the Floor." If I were going to recommend a couple recordings, try Mississippi John Hurt 1928 Sessions (Yazoo 1065, Yazoo Records), and The Best of Mississippi John Hurt (VSD-19/20, Vanguard Records) (recorded live at Oberlin College April 15, 1965). But it's all quite wonderful.

michael