Mississippi John Hurt was born in either 1892 or 1893, in Mississippi. He recorded Stag several times (with variant spellings to boot, and the last version he put to wax was the year of his death, 1966) but this is his original version from 1928.After two recording sessions in 1928, John Hurt left the music profession and returned to sharecropping, though he continued to play at barn dances and for friends. In 1963, a blues scholar tracked him down and convinced him to give the music industry another try, which led to widespread acclaim and fame for Hurt in the last four years of his life: three full albums, a college concert tour, and an appearance on The Tonight Show. The Wikipedia page for Stagger Lee calls this recording "definitive," and it's still inspiring musicians to this day.
The buy link goes to Amazon, but you can also download five songs (including Stag and his version of "Frankie (and Johnny/Albert)" at The Internet Archive.
2 comments:
Cripes, i miss one Saturday and you come back w/ a full force Monday posting.
Me likey.
See? Just when you think I'm gonna zig, that's when I zag.
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