Lonesome Valley

I'm going to stick with a Mississippi John Hurt theme for a bit. There's actually a really great story about how MJH was re-discovered in the 60s, even if there's an element of exploitation involved in it. During the revival of interest in the blues in the 60s, young white folk music enthusiasts started listening and learning from recordings made in the 20s. Amongst these was an MJH recording, which Folkways had re-released in the early 50s. Jas Obrecht tells of how MJH was literally found through his music:

Unbeknownst to Hurt, Folkways Records re-released two of his old 78 songs in the early 50s ... and he had a circle of admirers. Most figured he was long dead, but Tom Hoskins, a young White musician living in Washington, D.C., had his doubts. After hearing a tape of "Avalon Blues" in 1963 [1], Hoskins headed for Mississippi with an old atlas that showed Avalon along a secondary road [2]. Locals directed him to the third mailbox up the hill where, sure enough, dwelled Mr. Hurt. At the time, Hurt was working on the cattle ranch cutting hay and helping with the cotton and corn harvests. Hoskins was thrilled to learn that Hurt's musical skills were intact, and talked him into coming to Washington, D.C. to begin a new career. "I though he was the police," Hurt remembered. "When he asked me to come North, I figured if I told him 'no', he'd take me anyway, so I said 'yes'."

[1] The lyric goes: "Avalon, my home town, always on my mind ..."
[2] Apparently current maps no longer showed the existence of Avalon.

So, the most appropriate thing to play on this post would be "Avalon Blues" but I haven't mastered that one yet. In the meantime, here's "Walk that Lonesome Valley", which has some nice position playing. I actually managed to learn this one from watch the video (posted below). MJH's playing makes something that took me a while for me to learn how to execute look effortless!



You've got to walk, that lonesome valley
You've got to walk, it for yourself.
Ain't nobody else, can walk it for you,
You've got to walk that valley for yourself