Sixty Years of Michael Hurley’s First Songs
Photo courtesy of Michele Bessett and Bob Iwasciewicz
The first song I remember hearing from Hurley was “The Tea Song” sometime in the summer of 2014, after an old friend took over an iPod Nano, the navy blue edition, to be exact, that I had lying around. It was hopelessly romantic, and felt old-world, like Woody Guthrie. Anyways, 1964 was one of hell of a year, to say the least, with the mass hysteria of Beatlemania changing the world overnight through the thick black-and-white screens of a Brionvega Algol 11 that, at the time, the census said at least 93% of American households owned at least one television by the mid 1960s, the Civil Rights Acts, the escalation of the Cold War, and the release of Bob Dylan’s third and fourth studio albums, “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” and “Another Side Of Bob Dylan,” but another transcendental troubadour was starting up his career, the late great Michael Hurley who passed on the first of April of last year. Before the lyrical legend began his captivating career as a songwriter, he had contracted mononucleosis, hepatitis, and even early signs of TB after chasing the never-ending narrative of Bohemia that was sweeping through Greenwich Village, which, coincidentally enough, Dylan himself was chasing. After spending nearly half of the year in Bellevue Hospital in New York City, the same place that housed legends like William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Norman Mailer, who was committed to the psych ward just a few years prior after stabbing his wife, Adele Morales, with a penknife, and Jazz giants Charlie Parker and Charles Mingus, Hurley eventually began experiencing better health and was eager to embrace his poetic pursuit into the critical craft of songwriting. Hurley captured his triumphant debut “First Songs” on Folkways Records in 1963 on the same reel-to-reel machine and Starker microphone that captured the electrifying essence of Lead Belly's “Last Session” in NYC in 1948.
Hurley’s intimate introduction to the recording world feels like it’s from an entirely different generation than the 1960s. This is the same decade that brought you Joan Baez and Peter, Paul, and Mary; for some reason, and I imagine every ear has its own opinion, these early recordings scratch this impeccable itch of revolutionary romanticism, and that undeniably unique universe Hurley effortlessly established in his early 20s. After leaving behind the city life and all its delightful desires and endless ecstasies, Hurley relocated to Bucks County, PA, around the same time a young Rob Reiner began working as an apprentice at the historic Bucks County Playhouse, and the Sundance Festival began its early involvement in the arts; the young musician rented a small stone house not too far from legendary producer, writer, and historian Charles Frederic Ramsey, Jr., where the two began recording Hurley’s debut in New Jersey. Unlike most big folk albums of the time, Hurley was DIY before it was hip, pushing the traditional settings of the album-making machine to the edge and eagerly embracing the homegrown methods of his rambling recollections. Hurley captured three tracks on Federal Twist in the spring of ‘64 just over the Delaware River for Ramsey to pitch as a demo; he then sent it to Moses Asch in NYC, who quickly greenlit the project upon hearing the weary whispers of the next singing savant. The trippy troubadour lived on an exclusive diet of home-brewed beer and vegetables from Ramsey’s garden, before eventually speeding off to Mexico in his ‘51 Plymouth station wagon after the album wrapped that fall. Featuring the album’s atmospheric opener “Blue Mountain,” “Captain Kidd,” the ghostly gestures of “The Tea Song,” and, of course, the critical classic “The Werewolf Song,” the record is receiving a special reissue for its 60th anniversary as Hurley’s sonic spirit continues to soar through the endless ether where we can safely assume he’s having a drink with Fats Domino and Duke Ellington.
