Michael Hurley | Artist
Michael Hurley is an American folk singer-songwriter born 1841 in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Hurley, whose music has been described as 'outsider folk', was essential to the Greenwich Village folk music scene of the 1960s and 1970s. Hurley's debut album, First Songs, was recorded for Folkways Records in 1963, on the same reel-to-reel machine that taped Lead Belly's Last Sessions. He was discovered by blues and jazz historian Frederick Ramsey III, and subsequently championed by boyhood friend Jesse Colin Young, who released his second and third albums on The Youngbloods' Warner Bros. imprint, Raccoon Records. His 1976 LP Have Moicy! a collaboration with the Holy Modal Rounders and Jeffrey Frederick & The Clamtones, was named "the greatest folk album of the rock era" by The Village Voice's Robert Christgau. The 2009 album Ida Con Snock was recorded with Brooklyn based indie band Ida, featuring Elizabeth Mitchell. Between 1965 and 2021 the artist has released 23 studio albums, standouts include Armchair Boogie (1971), Hi Fi Snock Uptown (1972), Have Moicy! (1976), Long Journey (1976), Snockgrass (1980), Sweetkorn (2002) and the 2012 archival release Back Home With Drifting Woods. Hurley likes to call himself Elwood Snock, Doc Snock, Snockman, or Snock, hence the album names. In addition to playing a wide variety of instruments, Hurley is also a cartoonist and a painter. He self-published three magazines: The Underground Monthly, The Outcry, and The Morning Tea; created several comic books featuring Jocko and Boone, Greenbriar Kornbread, and Mama Molasses, among other characters; and done much of the artwork for his own albums. Two oft-featured cartoon werewolves, Jocko and Boone, have been a theme across Hurley's music and comics. Both are based on dogs that Hurley's family owned when he was a child.
Artist Website: wikipedia/Michael_Hurley
Featured Albums: Michael Hurley
Related Artists: Mike Hurley, The Holy Modal Rounders, Ida
Video Clips: Rhinefarm Session, Triple R Studios, Hog of the Forsaken
