John Smith Hurt was an American country blues singer and guitarist who lived from March 8, 1893, until November 2, 1966.
Hurt played the guitar in a quick, syncopated fingerpicking technique that he had developed on his own.
Few other musicians had an impact on him, but one of them was an elderly, unrecorded blues singer from his hometown named Rufus Hanks, who also played harmonica and a 12-string guitar.
He also remembered listening to Jimmie Rodgers, a country music performer. Hurt occasionally employed an open tuning together with a slide, as shown in his rendition of “The Ballad of Casey Jones.”
“The school of John Fahey developed from his finger-picking,” writes music critic Robert Christgau, “and although he’s not the first calmly conversational singer in the modern folk tradition, no one else has articulated the blues with such delicacy or restraint.”
How old was Mississippi John Hurt when he died?
He died at the age of 73 years old.
