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Folk Blues

Bucks County, Folkways, 1964

Michael Hurley

Michael Hurley grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and made his first album, First Songs, for Folkways in 1964 after a long stay in Bellevue Hospital delayed the sessions. Folkways owner Moe Asch paid him an advance for a second record, which Hurley spent on bills. Jesse Colin Young of the Youngbloods later brought him to the Raccoon label. In 1976 he shared Have Moicy! with the Unholy Modal Rounders and Jeffrey Frederick & the Clamtones, and Robert Christgau named it his album of the year. His songs mixed folk, blues and jug band music, and he painted his own covers, often of wolves in hip clothes, including his cartoon pair Boone and Jocko. Cat Power has named him as a favourite. He lived in rural Oregon and died in Portland in April 2025, aged 83.

Medicine shows and Brandie Records

Abner Jay

Abner Jay's full name was Abner Wingate Jay. In the medicine shows of his youth he played guitar first and banjo later. Over the years he drove for the evangelist singer Dolly Lewis, briefly managed Sister Rosetta Tharpe, led a rock and roll band called Big Abner Jay, ran a restaurant and managed nightclubs. His repertoire took in Stephen Foster songs, Pentecostal hymns and field songs, along with songs of his own about politics, war and the Moon landing. He pressed his own records in runs of fewer than 500 copies and handed out leaflets that billed him with joke titles like the world's fastest mule skinner. Jas Obrecht interviewed him for seven hours for Guitar Player in 1982.

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