MISSISSIPPI JOHN HURT 1st OKEH RECORDS 1928, FRANKIE,78

$

1,905

              Lakeside General Merchandise

We folks here at Lakeside General Merchandise plan to continue to offer a wide variety of antiques, collectibles and other cool stuff for sale on eBay in 2004.  Thanks to all of our great customers for making 2003 a great year for us.  Understanding the difficulties of selling by mail order or by internet, we plan to describe each item we offer for sale and its condition very carefully.  Keeping that in mind, we wish to offer a generous return policy. If for any reason you are dissatisfied with one of our items, you may return it for a complete refund. We do ask that if you find that the item is different than described, please let us know by email within 3 days of receipt. Once we reply, you may then send the item back within 10 days, please, and receive a prompt refund upon safe undamaged return of the item. 

This record is in very good condition; we asked a professional's opinion and they graded it at V+ (very good plus).  Both sides play all the way through without skips and only a very minimal amount of surface noise.   The labels are in excellent condition, with two  wrinkles on each side of the center on the Frankie side (where it appears the label may have been folded before it was applied to the record), and some very minor scratches on the Nobody's Dirty Business side; please see photos and supersize for details.  Very hard to find with the original Okeh Records sleeve which is really fascinating in itself.  The sleeve is in very good condition also, but for a number 2. written on one side, a minor 1/4 inch tear at the middle top of the sleeve as shown in the picture and a few tiny chips as can be seen at the top left edge of the sleeve, and some very minor folds and a very small 1/8 inch tear on the other side.  An interesting piece of Black memorabilia, the sleeve reads in part "Okeh RECORDS FOR EVERYBODY" ... "RACE RECORDS, Blues and Dance Records by foremost colored entertainers, singers and hot jazz orchestras.  Spiritual, Jubilee, Sermon and Singing."  So called "Race Records" featuring black entertainers were made by Okeh Records to be marketed to the African American community in the 1920's.   You can find more information on these at this website, if you like: http://features.aroundcarolina.com/racerecords/   Here's some more information on Mississippi John Hurt from this great website, where you can also find a beautiful sound sample recording by him.  http://www.vanguardrecords.com/Hurt/home.html

Mississippi John Hurt

Born:March 8, 1892 (or July 3, 1893, depending on who you ask), Teoc, Carroll County, Mississippi

Died: November 2, 1966, Grenada, Mississippi

"Mississippi John Hurt's interest in music began at nine years old when his mother gave him a guitar. He quickly taught himself to play. Avalon, Mississippi, where he lived most of his life, was in a remote part of the southern state and would rarely be visited by traveling bluesmen of the time, so John Hurt would learn songs from fellow field hands and other workers in his area. He played local dances and celebrations in Avalon but made little money from his music. In 1928, Tommy Rockwell, from Okeh Records, was touring Mississippi looking for talent when he was told about Mississippi John Hurt. He found John Hurt and brought him to Memphis to record a few tunes. On February 14, 1928, he recorded two tracks in Memphis, "Frankie," and "Nobody's Dirty Business," which were subsequently released as Okeh 8560. (The record offered for sale in this eBay listing, Hurt's first recording on Okeh Records!)  The record didn't sell, but Rockwell was certain Hurt could be successful, so that December he sent him a ticket to New York. On December 21, Hurt recorded four more songs, and a week later, seven more. No doubt it was the experience of spending Christmas in the bewilderingly large city, with its cold and bustle, that caused John Hurt to record "Avalon Blues" at that last session.

Although Okeh released all but one song that they'd recorded, the sales figures were pathetic, only a few hundred each. There was no question of trying more, and at any rate, by the end of 1929, the entire record industry would crater as the Depression took hold. Naturally, the rural blacks and whites which formed the core of Okeh's business were the first, and hardest, hit. John Hurt didn't care. He didn't have dreams of stardom, and he was happy with the money he'd been paid, which was more than he'd have made in the same time farming. He went back to work, playing Saturday night dances for $5, and working regularly. In the mid-1940s, he moved onto the property where Hoskins and Stewart found him, and was content to farm and raise his family.

In retrospect, it's easy to see why the Okeh records failed. For one thing, despite the fact that a number of his songs have the word "blues" in the title (a concession to commercial trends of the time as much as anything, perhaps), they're not blues. Hurt belongs to an older, pre-blues tradition. Although people often think of the blues as an ancient music, overwhelming evidence points to its having come into being in the early years of this century. The fact that John Hurt worked with fiddle players shows that he was more conversant with older styles. Furthermore, the large number of story-songs in his repertoire puts him in what is known as the "songster" tradition, since blues, for the most part, have no narrative content. And finally, you won't hear a bent note in any of John Hurt's music (although he does play slide guitar on one track on this collection, "Talking Casey," a song he probably learned much later). His style owes more to the pre-blues ragtime technique than it does to any of the more modern music being made just a few miles away from where he grew up. Also, he was older than the majority of the blues musicians being recorded at the time, so it makes sense that his music would hearken to an earlier time.

But the reasons for his failure then were also the basis for his later success. As becomes evident within the first few seconds of playing his recordings, there is a charm, a sweetness, to Mississippi John Hurt's music that is unlike any other. True, it took him a little while to regain the confidence that shines through in his later recordings; by the time he signed with Vanguard, he had seen the miracles at Newport and Philadelphia, and was certain people liked him. He became a true entertainer: besides his own repertoire, only a bit of which had been touched by Okeh, he integrated hymns and old pop songs into his act, even admitting, on "Goodnight Irene," that he'd learned the song from a Leadbelly record that he surely didn't have back in Avalon.

After World War II, interests in his old recordings began to rise and folklorists began looking for John Hurt. Unable to find him, it was presumed that he had died, that is until blues collector Tom Hoskins realized that John's song, "Avalon Blues", referred to Avalon, Mississippi. He successfully set out to find John Hurt in 1963. Hoskins convinced John to return with him to Washington, D.C. and after creating quite a reputation, John went on to play at the Newport Folk Festival that year. The Newport performance was such a success that he went on to tour extensively in the later years of his life, although he returned home quite often to Mississippi. He repeated his stunning 1963 Newport performance at Newport in 1964. He recorded for Piedmont Records in 1963 and 1964. After that, Vanguard Records recorded what were to be his remaining albums.

A true American balladeer, Mississippi John Hurt would come to influence many modern blues artists despite his limited time in the public eye. His musical legacy is one that many have come to admire because he played for the shear joy of playing, as was evident by the twinkle in his eyes when he would perform. As you listen to his songs, you can picture him sitting on the stage at Newport smiling wide, with a twinkle in his eyes and relishing every moment.

Undeniably, a large number of people, who ranged from having much to nothing to gain from his success, showed him kindness and trust which was one of his characteristics. They adjusted their lives to accommodate him, as he had adjusted his own. John Hurt died happy. In the last three and a half years of his life he was able to experience what few people ever can. Instead of living out his days in obscurity, he was able to be appreciated and loved by people all over the country, both for his music and for being the fine man he was. This meant the world to both him and his wife Jessie.

When once asked if he knew how good his music was, he replied almost confidentially, "Yeah... I know it...and I been Knowin' it, but I never dreamed things would've turned out like they have...never dreamed it."

John Hurt used to have a saying- "I don't like no confusion." You can hear it in his music, you could sense it in his life and you can feel it in the place where he chose to rest. He is buried deep in the woods of Carroll County, Mississippi." 

A beautiful and very rare record by the legendary Mississippi John Hurt in its original Okeh Records Sleeve, it would look wonderful framed as the centerpiece of an advanced record collection.

To see some more wonderful things, including an Okeh Records recording by blues musician Blind Lemon Jefferson, please click here to see our other auctions.  Thanks for looking!

We are offering this great rare Mississippi John Hurt 78 rpm record in its original Okeh Records sleeve with a starting bid of only $49.95 and a very reasonable reserve.  (We've been told by professionals that this rare record is very rarely offered for sale; in the last auction they knew of it was listed with a minimum bid of $600 in V+ condition, without the original Okeh Records sleeve that we have here, and our really rather ridiculously low reserve is less than a third of that!)  

Please read the following carefully. If you have any questions, please email before you bid at karenthian@schoollink.net   All questions will be promptly answered to the best of our ability.  By bidding on this item, you accept all of the terms listed below:

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