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BY RICHARD MARTIN |
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Michael Hurley St. Johns Pub 8203 N Ivanhoe St., 283-8520 9 pm Friday, Nov. 13 $10 advance, $12 at the door When Townes Van Zandt died last year, Michael Hurley suddenly stood alone as the last great unsung hero of American folk music. He hadn't managed to fly under the cultural radar completely unnoticed--astute critics seized upon his few performances to laud him as a lost master of incomparable songwriting skills. But to this day, there's no tribute album, no major-label reissue program and no groundswell of popular recognition for the man also known as Doc Snock. So who is Michael Hurley? Since recording his debut for Folkways in 1965, the twisted troubadour has released about a dozen albums of unwavering quality, sauntering through a distinctive pastiche of blues, country and folk styles and singing undiluted odes to Southern cookin', lovely ladies and animated critters. Hurley's first West Coast tour in memory and his recent recording sessions for the forthcoming album Weatherhole beg a question about his reasons for returning to action. "It's no return of involvement at all," Hurley says from a friend's home in Vermont, one of the many states he's resided in during his 50-plus years. "It wasn't a decision on my part. It's just that the opportunities are more open now. Maybe all my past efforts have paid off." The compounded interest alone on Hurley's musical contributions to the Americana canon would amount to more than the modest returns he's experiencing of late. Have Moicy!, his 1976 collaboration with the Unholy Modal Rounders and Jeffrey Frederick & the Clamtones, stands as a classic and a prototype of the modern alt-country format. (The musicians first met in Portland two years earlier, during one of Hurley's two sojourns here.) Two of his mid-period solo records for Rounder, Long Journey (1976) and Snockgrass (1980)--both of which were reissued on the folk label last year--teemed with spirited numbers constructed from twangy guitars, colorful mandolin and banjo runs, homespun fiddle solos, barroom piano vamps and backwoods narratives. He could do it all: settle into a relaxed sway in somber songs like "No Home" or "O My Stars"; croon like a country great in "Long Journey" and "Whiskey Willey"; stir up a laugh with "You Gonna Look Like a Monkey" or "I Heard the Voice of a Porkchop"; and express longing and tenderness in lighthearted romps like "Portland Water" and "Tia Marie." Besides singing and playing guitar, piano, fiddle and banjo, Hurley also painted watercolors that served as album covers, with cartoon creatures sprung directly from his lyrics. More remarkable still, his talents never faded. Hurley's 1994 album Wolfways (released in the United States on Koch in 1996) seamlessly posited rerecorded versions of cult favorites like "Portland Water" and "Werewolf" alongside new material. His latest album, due out early next year on an upstart New York label called Field Recordings, beckons with promise. Hurley recorded Weatherhole in Virginia and Brooklyn, with help from ex-Holy Modal Rounder and Golden Delicious bassist David Reisch; Sparklehorse's Paul Watson; ex-Cracker drummer Johnny Hott; sometime Dylan mandolin and pedal steel player David Mansfield; and Kevin Maul, the pedal steel player from the folk duo Robin and Linda Williams. Perhaps with the forthcoming release, Hurley will merit the type of hoopla bestowed upon other forgotten masters like John Prine and John Fahey in recent years. He's certainly poised; a newer generation musicians like Lucinda Williams and Vic Chesnutt have praised Hurley of late, and Son Volt tapped him as an opener for some Midwest dates a few years back. But Hurley maintains that he's unaware of any influence he's had on the thriving alt-country movement and jokes that any newfound acclaim may be detrimental. "I always believed in my music, and a few friends encouraged me," he says. "When the Rounder records were reissued [in early '97], they made no splash. Now, almost 20 years after they were originally released, they are. Sometimes the time is right, or something may have been ahead of its time." As for his new record, Hurley says, "The times may be catching up with me. I think my music is pretty much the same. Maybe if I'm recognized now, it also means that I'm finished. Washed up." Whatever happens, he'll maintain a copyright on what he long ago dubbed "Snockgrass," that is, the type of bluegrass played by his alter ego, Doc Snock. "I play my bluegrass with a stomp, you see," he explains. "Snockgrass just means that it would be bluegrass, but Snock got a hold of it." Ever pioneering and with his offbeat humor resolutely intact, Hurley insists that his recent activities are in no way meant to instigate a career-wide appraisal. Asked what type of reaction he'd like from West Coast audiences, he launches into a good-natured monologue. "I'm playing for the nice night-life type," he says, slyly quoting his 1980 song "Midnight Rounder." "If you're with your girl and you feel romantic, maybe you wanna drink some wine and light a candle, I wanna appeal to you. I'll play your requests. I'm not playing for the museum crowd that just wants to make an anthropological report on the sociological impact of Doc Snock. It's for the action crowd."
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