Underappreciated Geniuses, Vol. 5: Michael Hurley

I was listening to Michael Hurley's Sweetkorn today. Like all of Hurley's albums, it is intimate and odd, warm although vaguely off-putting in its weirdness. A Hurley record is like a visit from that strange uncle your parents didn't want you to see too often and with whom they would never leave you alone but who was charming and wonderful all the same, who did corny magic tricks and made up fun games no one else would ever think of and told rambling stories that had no end and made you laugh without your having the slightest idea why they were funny. He probably had spent some time in jail.

Hurley is the slacker John Prine. I imagine Prine would be a lot like Michael Hurley today had the former not become famous. Hurley did not become famous. He has gotten through life on an assortment of odd jobs that includes auto repair, painting, and singing, and over the course of sixty some odd years he has amassed a small but devoted following.

Hurley's music is laid back and rootsy. Some of it is so laconic that it practically doesn't make it out of the speakers. It is ancient sounding, like an Uncle Dave Macon record, and it is almost certainly the product of disorienting substances. It alludes frequently to a personal mythology that includes werewolves, hogs of the forsaken, talking pork chops, and a character named Snock who is a proxy for Hurley in the alternate universe his music details.

What makes Hurley special is his blend of whimsy and soulfulness. He's no Nick Drake; not much gets him down, and nothing seems to get him down for too long. Yet he's not just some lightweight joker, either. He's quite capable of ratcheting up the stakes and providing something quite stirring and lovely, such as:

Kiss me once, oh, kiss me twice
Give me a taste of paradise
I don't need the blues always on my shoulder
They give me a cold feeling, gettin' colder

Oh my stars how you undo me
Oh my stars, oh my stars
You undo me

or vaguely mystical, such as:

Holy is as holy is as holy
To me
And beauty is as beauty does
Time is watching the show, time is watching the show

With no apparent commercial constraints, Hurley is free to be as wide-ranging as he pleases, and he pleases plenty. Hence songs like "You're Gonna Look Like a Monkey When You Get Old" and lyrics like

Protein monster ate a sack of poison sugar
Crawlin out of the barn to the weeds to die
He's rollin' his eyes... eyes, eyes

Mama molasses broke my glasses
And the moon came up and we wiggled our asses
She's got red eyes... eyes, eyes ("Eyes Eyes", Wolfways)

It's like reading the diary of a slighty crazy but very interesting person. I love it even when I have no idea what he's getting at.

It's all set to some lovely melodies that burrow deep enough in your brain that you'll think you've known them forever the second time you hear them. His records favor organic arrangements of banjos, mandolins, acoustic and electric guitars, piano, etc. etc. so that they sound like very compelling jam sessions, which may very well be the case.

If I still haven't sold you on Hurley's music, surf on over here and stream some Snocktunes before you write him off forever. Start with "Oh My Stars" or "I Paint a Design." If you're interested in more, check out (in this order, more or less): Snockgrass, Have Moicy! (a Holy Modal Rounders album on which Hurley is featured prominently), Long Journey, and Wolfways.

PS NPR did a fairly long piece on Michael Hurley on November 17, 2007. If it's still up, the link will take you to it.