Michael Hurley, the eccentric singer and singer-songwriter who launched the “Freak-Folk” movement and inspired by generations of artists, has died. He was 83 years old.
“It is with resounding sadness that the Hurley family announces the recent sudden death of the inimitable Michael Hurley,” said Hurley's family Declaration to Rolling Stone. “The” Freak Folk godfather “was for half a prolific half-century the provider of an eccentric genius and a compassionate spirit. He alone was from Snock. There is no other. Friends, family and musical community deeply cry its loss. ”
The family did not offer the case of death or a list of survivors.
Hurley, born in Pennsylvania, has perfected his cracked perspective on the Bluegrass, Blues and Folk on the folk scene of Greenwich Village in New York in the 1960s, after the producer and folklorist Fred Ramsey picked him up on a hike of hitchhiking. He released his first album, “First Songs” from 1964, on Folkways, the acclaimed house of Woody Guthrie and “Anthology of American Folk Music” of the Conservative Harry Smith.
The talents of Hurley were multiple – he designed and illustrated most of his charming album drawn by hand, and learned a diversity of instruments, including the banjo and the violin. His songs had a strange and strange quality which could be both beautiful (as on “being nice to me” and “Valley of Tears”) and surreal (“What made my hamburger disappear?” Or “You are a dog; don't talk to me”). He was a childhood friend of the future singer of Youngbloods, Jesse Colin Young, who would defend the asymmetrical vision of Hurley by publishing “Le Boogie de armchair” of 1971 and “Hi Fi Scock Uptown” of 1972 on his raccoon of Warner Bros.
1976 “Have Moicy!” has become an underground cult favorite, and its expanding catalog would drop to more than 30 LPS. Along the way, independent rockers and songwriters of singers sharing the same ideas like Lucinda Williams and Cat Power (who obtained an interpretation with entertainment His single “Werewolf” On his classic LP 2003 “You are free”) would defend his work. Devendra Banhart released Hurley's albums on his Gormonsong label, and Hurley appeared in The 2018 film “Leave no trace”, where he interpreted “O My Stars”.
“Call me a foreign artist … yes, I think it's appropriate”, he said to the Guardian in 2021. “It took me a long time to join the gang … I did not appreciate the process of applying for concerts, this determination to penetrate things, all these troubles that you had to cross. I preferred to play evenings. Small rallies. Drink with friends, jump through the river. ”
Hurley lived in the rural regions of Oregon in recent years, released his latest album, “The Time of the Foxgloves”, in 2021. He continued to write and perform during concerts, including the Big Ears Festival in Tennessee a few days before his death.
