Michael Hurley

Grief can do strange things to a songwriter. For Alela Diane, the death of Portland folk legend Michael Hurley last year didn’t close a door — it flung one wide open. Who’s Keeping Time?, her seventh album and debut on Loose Music, arrives May 22nd as a communal, attic-recorded reckoning with time, memory, and the enduring pull of song. Listen to lead single ‘California’.

Michael Hurley’s final album, Broken Homes and Gardens, finds him in essential form: digressive, surreal, jokey, ultimately moving. A folk prankster with a poet’s soul. A fitting way to cap a thirty-odd album legacy that is as important as practically any songwriter you care to mention. He sounds like he had a whole lot more up his sleeve. He always did. 

In April, the world of music lost a true original, after the folk icon Michael Hurley, the wily cartoonist and songwriter known to many as “Snock,” passed away. His passing came just after he put the finishing touches on his final studio album, Broken Homes and Gardens, a farewell that stands as a warm and fitting final entry in one of American music’s most singular and influential catalogues.

Legendary outsider folk singer Michael Hurley has passed away. In a statement, his family said: “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…”

Mississippi Records are to release a reimagined version of Michael Hurley’s 2002 album Sweetkorn which will also feature a totally new recording. The album includes new artwork and has been beautifully remixed, as you can hear on ‘O My Stars’.

Paring things down to their essence, what Michael Hurley does on Time of the Foxgloves is establish that the truth is where you find it. Hurley’s brand of truth should never go out of fashion; it is timeless.

Throughout his career, Michael Hurley has inhabited his own niche, a living embodiment of the songs Harry Smith collected for his Anthology Of American Folk Music. Living Ljubljana is an excellent addition to his canon of work.

The legendary American folk singer Michael Hurley is in the UK and Ireland on tour during June including two nights at London’s Cafe Oto as well as gigs in Bristol, Manchester, Edinburgh, Cork, Dublin and more.

A new mix that blends some music to drift along to before falling down a rabbit hole with a bunch of subversives – Stick in the Wheel, Jeffrey lewis and more

Josh Rouse heads out on a record buying trip, courtesy of Yep Roc Records and selects two classic albums to chat about: Nick Drake’s ‘Five Leaves Left’ and Michael Hurley’s ‘Have Moicy’. Watch the video here.

Cass McCombs and Michael Hurley are to release a joint single on Secret Seven Records. Both artists are to feature previously unreleased recordings.

I occasionally post details of past playlists to give a flavour of what we play. This is the Frukie playlist for 4th May 2010. Maybe at some point in the future when we have more time on our hands we’ll post them daily. The image is of Michael Hurley who has been making incredible alternative music since 1965!