It’s with a heavy heart that we share the news that Michael Hurley passed away on April 1st, 2025, in Portland, Oregon.
The Hurley family issued the following statement:
It is with a resounding sadness that the Hurley family announces the recent sudden passing of the inimitable Michael Hurley. The “Godfather of freak folk” was for a prolific half-century the purveyor of an eccentric genius and compassionate wit. He alone was Snock. There is no other. Friends, family, and the music community deeply mourn his loss.
Michael Hurley ft. Kassi Valazza & Merle Law
Hurley released his debut album ‘First Songs’ on Moses Asch’s FolkWay Records in 1964. That album pretty much flew under the radar, unlike his next – Armchair Boogie, released several years later in 1971 along with a comic book insert featuring Hurley’s famous Boone & Jocko, two beatnik wolves.
Music critic Byron Coley once wrote in a wonderful article in Arthur Mag – “the best American musical inventors (Harry Partch, John Coltrane, John Fahey, Albert Ayer, et al) have consistently possessed an odd blend of traditional and avant garde elements inside their work…Michael Hurley deserves a place among this pantheon”. Read the orginal and in-depth article here.
Michael Hurley feat. My Bubba:
In his review of the 2018 live album Living Ljubljana, Paul Kerr wrote: “A true original, Michael Hurley has over 50 years of singing and recording his unique brand of old time folk and blues under his belt. Throughout his career he has remained resolutely under the radar, his only near brush with fame of sort coming when Robert Christgau (“The dean of critics”) proclaimed the 1975 album Have Moicy, which Hurley recorded with The Unholy Modal Rounders and The Clamtones, as, “the greatest folk album of the rock era.” Given that Hurley wrote and sang songs about werewolves, the digestive system and hanging clothes on the washing line and was the probable originator of lo-fi it’s not too surprising really that most folk would ask, “Who?” when his name is mentioned. However, over the years, Hurley has amassed his supporters with artists such as Yo La Tengo, Cat Powers and Devendra Banhart praising him while many of his early albums, long unavailable, have been reissued.
He concludes “…Hurley sounded as if he came from an earlier age when he recorded his first album back in 1965 and throughout his career, he has inhabited his own niche, a living embodiment of the songs Harry Smith collected for his Anthology Of American Folk Music.”
Hurley was first introduced to Mississippi Records founder Eric Isaacson in 2003, having just moved to Portland, Oregon. The label have shared a poem by Michael himself, and some reminiscences from label founder and longtime pal Eric.
From Mississippi Records founder Eric Isaacson
[a note from Eric Isaacson at the Mississippi shop in Portland]:
Hello all,
Sad to say the great Michael Hurley has passed away.
For starters, here’s a poem he wrote –
Here’s to you!
Here’s to Doctor Ron Liedner
Here’s to Beth Littlewolf who found me upon my arrival in Portland Oregon
Here’s to the original peoples of the land we live on and all the plants here on which we feed and to the sky, the moon, the sun, the air and the water…
here’s to life.
Here’s to friendship, dear and adverse, bees, birds and the furred animals we love.
The raccoons, the bears, the dogs, the cats and the craftspeople who build our hats.
Here’s to the worship of all these things.
Here’s to peace, to concentration, the darkness, the light and our children.
Here’s to our tears, here’s to our laughter and our play.
Here’s to the hope; we’ll find our way.
Here’s to this wine.
Here’s to the fish, the saltwater and the wind. endless. (don’t feel slighted if we missed your name)
Here’s to the music that carries us thru
Let us not forget the chickens who lay the eggs
dual figure eights is two waving hands side by side
the rabbits are hopping soundlessly in the grass
I could fill hundreds of pages with stories and accolades of Michael. He lived a life that’s beyond belief. But, Michael didn’t like fanfare, so I’ll keep it brief.
I will say these things – .
If I had not seen it and suffered under it for 22 years, I could never believe someone lived by their own unique code as hardcore as Michael did. Some would call him stubborn, but I always thought of him as nobly defiant. Michael’s will was unbreakable. For better and worse he taught me to stick to my guns, even if they were pointed the wrong way half the time.
Michael saw his friends as family. He could be distant and hard to read at times, but he always genuinely loved his friends.
Michael was a romantic. Every song he wrote is grounded in romance with women, food, the road, friends, booze, ghosts, the mystery and on and on.
Deep down Michael knew he was one of the greatest songwriters of all time. He didn’t strut and crow about it, but he knew it was true. Michael believed that songs had great value and could change the world, so he worked hard at his craft.
Michael genuinely existed in a different dimension than the rest of us. Interdimensional beings, talking wolves, dance crazes like Doin’ The oPossum and Measling, magic teas and so on were things he had genuine contact with. He was tuned in to worlds the squares will never know.
Michael knew more song lyrics by heart than anyone I’ve ever met. If an old song’s words were evading his memory at 2 AM, he would call me to sing an incomplete verse in hopes that I could finish it off. These are the best calls I ever got. Songs were constantly swimming in his head.
Michael and I shared a religious love of music. We both admitted that if it wasn’t for music, we’d have been dead long ago. It was one of our main reasons for living….though food, love, friendship and the exciting novelties of life figured into it too.
Michael believed in being intentional. Often when he saw me rushing, or when I tried to speed him up, he wagged a finger at me and said, ‘there’s no dignity in haste.”
Alright, I’m going too long already. I would write a book about Michael Hurley, but he made me promise not to. (Really).
I’m going to miss him a ton and am grateful he left us all with so much great art and memories to continue helping us through.
I’ll let him give the last word –
“I take me a room at the intrepid Inn, where the winds
of eternity sweep across the last crossroads before hell, where
our absences are each others presences and the aimless driving
blue navigators rave on.”
– Doc Snock
Don’t be alarmed,
Keep veepin”,
Eric at Mississippi Records
A Michael Hurley Playlist featuring Mississippi Favourites:
