Mississippi John Hurt

This is Mississippi John Hurt, and he was far from the devilish sort; there probably never was a more lovable bluesman. Soft-spoken, mild-mannered John Hurt was born in Teoc, Mississippi, in 1893, and lived most of his life in neighboring Avalon. He recorded 13 songs for the OKeh label in 1928, including Avalon Blues, Frankie, Ain't No Tellin', Stack O' Lee Blues, Candy Man Blues, and Spike Driver Blues -- a ballad he learned during a brief stint as a railroad worker in 1916. Hurt fell into obscurity until his rediscovery in the early 1960s, when he began to play the coffeehouse and folk-festival circuit, including the 1963 through 1965 Newport Folk Festivals. John Hurt died in Grenada, Mississippi, in 1966.
John Hurt preceded Bessie Smith in this world by less than a year. Born in a Chattanooga, Tennessee, slum in 1894, Bessie was orphaned in her early teens and was forced to eke out a living singing and dancing on Chattanooga street corners. She was soon befriended by the legendary Ma Rainey, and her career began to flourish in the early 1920s. In the following decade, she recorded such blues classics as Taint Nobody's Bizness If I Do, Poor Man's Blues, St. Louis Blues, and Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out. Bessie Smith was killed in an auto accident near Clarksdale, Mississippi, in 1937. Some have suggested that Smith died after being refused treatment at a whites-only hospital. This is now considered to be untrue.