Topic: Mississippi John Hurt--The Library of Congress Recordings

[Johnm]

Hi all,
I've long been intending to do list of the positions/tunings and pitches of Mississippi John Hurt's Library of Congress recordings, recorded in two sessions on July 15 and July 23, 1963, approximately four months after John Hurt was "re-discovered" by Tom Hoskins in Avalon, Mississippi.  These recordings have been released in recent years on two 2-CD sets (Volumes One and Two) on the Fuel 2000 Records label.  Volume One's number is 302 061 407 2 and Volume Two's is 302 061 495 2.  Many of the songs on these recordings were never recorded elsewhere by John Hurt, either at his 1928 sessions or in the various commercial sessions he did in the '60s for Piedmont or Vanguard.  
In listing the playing position/tuning in the tables below, the presumption will be that unless Vestapol or Spanish tuning is listed, John Hurt was playing in standard tuning (though perhaps high or low of A 440).  Where pitches are listed, they indicate the key in which the rendition sounds, with a minus sign following the key indicating the pitch was flat of the note and a plus sign indicating the pitch was sharp of the note.  Multiple plus or minus signs indicated an intensified sharpness or flatness of pitch, respectively.  Titles for the songs are listed as they appear on the CDs, and are different in many instances from how the titles for the same songs appear elsewhere.  Volume One's titles will be listed in this post, with Volume Two's titles in the next post.



Mississippi John Hurt?s Library of Congress Recordings--pitch/position

Volume 1

Disc 1:
Title:                                          Position                                Pitch
1) Avalon Blues                            E                                        E flat
2) Richlands Women Blues             C                                        B
3) Frankie and Albert                    Spanish tuning                      G-
4) Trouble, I?ve Had All My Day      D                                        C
5) Pera-Lee                                 Spanish                               G
6) Candy Man                              A                                        G
7) Stockwell                                C                                        B flat+
8 Got the Blues That Can?t            G                                        F+
Be Satisfied
9) Let the Mermaids Flirt With Me   C                                        B flat+
10) Talking Casey Jones                Spanish                               G
11) Pay Day                                Vestapol tuning                     D+
12) Louis Collins                           C                                       B flat+
13) Stackolee                              D                                       C+
14) Coffee Blues                          A                                       G+
15) Slidin? Delta                           E                                       D+
16) Corrina, Corrina                     C                                         A flat+
17) Hey Baby Right Away              C                                        B flat+
18) Nobody?s Dirty Business          C                                         B

Disc 2:
1) Pallet On The Floor                  C                                         B flat+
2) Waiting For A Train                  C                                         A flat
3) Funky Butt                             C                                         A flat
4) Spanish Flangdang                  Spanish                                 G
5) Monday Morning Blues             A                                         A flat
6) Shortenin? Bread                     C                                         A flat
7) Oh Mary Don?t You Weep          E                                         D
8 Farther Along                         C                                         A flat
9) Do Lord Remember Me            G                                         E flat
10) Over In The Glory Land          C                                         A flat
11) Glory Glory Hallelujah           C                                          B flat
12) What A Friend We Have         C                                          B flat+
In Jesus
13) Where Shall I Be                   C                                         A flat
14) Weeping And Wailing             C                                         A flat
15) Joe Turner                           G                                         F sharp
16) If You Don?t Want Me             Spanish                                 G
                                               Vestapol                                D+
17) Rubber Dolly                        C                                          B flat++
18) Keep Me Knockin?                  A                                          G+

All best,
Johnm      

[Johnm]

Hi all,
Here are the songs, positions/tunings and pitches for John Hurt's Library of Congress Recordings, Volume 2.

Volume 2

Disc One:

Title                                                Position                              Pitch
1) Monday Morning Blues                    A                                        A flat
2) Nobody?s Dirty Business                  C                                         B
3) If You Don?t Want Me                      Vestapol                               D+
4) Spike Driver                                 G                                        F+
5) Salty Dog                                     G                                        F+
6) My Creole Belle                             C                                        B flat++
7) Casey Jones                                  G                                        F+
8 Beulah Land                                  E                                         D+
9) Waiting For You                             G                                        F
10) Stackolee                                   D                                        B flat+
11) Walking the Floor Over You            C                                       A flat++
12) Camp Meeting Tonight                   C                                       A flat+
13) Blessed Be The Name                   C                                        A flat+
14) When the Roll Is Called                 C                                        A flat+
15) Blind Man Sat In the Way               G                                       E flat++
and Cried
16) Glory To His Name                       C                                       A flat++
17) I?ll Fly Away                                C                                       A flat+
18) The Ten Virgins                           Vestapol                              C+

Disc Two:

1) Avalon Blues                                E                                        C++
2) Cow Hooking Blues                        E                                        C++
3) I?m Satisfied                                C                                         A flat+
4) Ain?t Nobody But You Babe             C                                         A flat+
5) Shortnin? Bread                            C                                         A flat+
6) Redwing                                     C                                         A flat+
7) Four O?Clock Blues                        C                                        A flat+
8 See See Rider                              D                                        B flat++
9) I Got Mine                                   C                                         A flat+
10) Good Morning Miss Carrie             G                                        E flat++
11) Alabama Bound                           G                                        E flat+
12) Looking This Way                        C                                         A flat+
13) God?s Unchanging Hand                C                                         A flat+
14) Poor Boy A Long Way From           G                                        E flat++
Home
15) Frankie No. 2                             G                                         E flat++
16) Chicken Song                             C                                          A flat++
17) You Are My Sunshine                   C                                          A flat++
18) Will the Circle Be Unbroken          C                                          A flat++
19) You Got To Get Ready                  C                                          A flat++

All best,
Johnm

[Johnm]

Hi all,
A couple of thoughts occurred to me re John Hurt's Library of Congress Recordings:
   * Pitch--It is not made clear whether the titles occur on the CDs in the order in which they were recorded, but based on what the pitch does, it certainly seems plausible.  It seems likely that John Hurt was using some sort of standardized source to tune when he went to Spanish tuning, for all of the tunes recorded in Spanish are squarely in G, and virtually none of the standard tuning titles are at standard pitch.  There are a surprising number of songs in the collection where John Hurt is tuned two whole steps below standard tuning.  What seems most likely is that he tuned down for one song for purposes pertaining to his vocal range, as in "Corrina, Corrina" in Volume One, disc one, or "Waiting for A Train", Shortenin' Bread", and "Farther Along" in Volume One, disc two, and then left the guitar tuned low for a number of following tunes.  In Volume 2, disc one, he tunes down for "Stackolee", and by the time he gets to "When The Roll Is Called" and "Blind Man Sat In The Way And Cried", his sixth string is noticeably flat.  In Volume Two, a full 27 out of 37 total titles are tuned two whole steps low, a percentage that is not remotely reflected in his commercial recordings.
   * Different Versions--One of the most striking features of John Hurt's playing as illustrated in these recordings and his commercial recordings was his ability and choice to play many of the same songs out of two different positions or tunings.  This quality is all but unheard of among Country Blues players, (try to imagine Lemon doing "Rabbit's Foot" in another key) but John Hurt does this very thing on the following tunes:
      * "Corrina, Corrina", played out of C position here, played out of D position on "Mississippi John Hurt--Today" on Vanguard
      * "If You Don't Want Me", played out of Vestapol on "Mississippi John Hurt--Today", played out of both Vestapol and Spanish tunings here, though with different melodies.
      * "Frankie" is played out of Spanish tuning in all recordings but one of the ones here, where John Hurt plays it out of G in standard tuning.
      * "The Ten Virgins" is played out of Vestapol here, E in standard tuning on "The Immortal John Hurt" on Vanguard
      * "Do Lord Remember Me" and "Beulah Land" have the same melody, but John Hurt played "Do Lord" out of G and "Beulah Land" out of E.  They're not really the same song, though.
   * Religious Songs--Like another Mississippian, Charlie Patton, John Hurt looks to have had the capacity to have played hymns for as long as anyone was willing to listen.  19 out of the 73 titles in the Library of Congress Recordings are religious numbers, and of those 19 songs, 15 are played out of C position.  Did any other player in the style so heavily favor C position for playing hymns?  Libba Cotten played some hymns in C, but also favored Spanish tuning for hymns.  In standard tuning, E position seems to be most often favored for playing hymns, while of the common open tunings, Spanish was favored by Joe Taggart, Charlie Patton and Rev. Edward Clayborn and Vestapol was favored by Blind Willie Johnson and Josh White.
   * No Set Pieces--Like Libba Cotten, another fairly controlled-sounding player who recorded many of the same pieces more than once, John Hurt proves to be a player who comes down squarely in the "in the moment" camp in terms of his execution.  Even when the left hand in two different versions of the same song is substantially the same, John Hurt always varied the right hand phrasing and rhythmic emphasis.  In some instances, a particular version of a song diverges so drastically from all the other versions he recorded of the same song that it barely seems recognizable--the version of "Monday Morning Blues" that follows "Spanish Flangdang" on disc 2 of Volume One is a good example.  It's a real jaw-dropper, practically a different tune altogether from "Monday Morning Blues" as he performed it elsewhere.
   * Keys/Positions--The performances on the Library of Congress Recordings rely much more heavily on C position than do John Hurt's commercial recordings, which mix in more tunes in E, A and D.  Is this just a function of the heavy proportion of religious numbers here?  It's hard to say, but it also appears that C may have been John Hurt's position of default for playing numbers he didn't do that often, like "Walking the Floor Over You", "Redwing", and others of the Standard variety.

If you don't have these recordings, I highly recommend you pick them up, both because they are great music and fascinating and also because there is no way of knowing how long they'll remain commercially available.

All best,
John  

[banjochris]

You can add "Good Morning, Miss Carrie" to that list of different versions, John -- he plays it in C on the Last Sessions album. Thanks so much for doing this; as many times as I've listened to Hurt and these recordings, it's always nice when there are some surprises, many of which you've highlighted here.
Chris

[Johnm]

Thanks, Chris, and thanks for the catch on "Good Morning Carrie".  It's always good to get the most complete information.  These recordings really grab attention when you pay attention.  It's so fortunate John Hurt was so well-recorded late in life.
All best,
Johnm

[Bunker Hill]

This is probably not be best place for this but, regardless, here's the entire sessions scanned from the Blues Discography. Lord knows how it will display!

Washington, DC, 15 July 1963
tk 2      Monday morning blues   Flyright(E) FLY 553
      Avalon blues   Heritage(E) HT 301
      Joe Turner   Heritage(E) HT 301
      Hop joint   unissued
      Good morning Miss Carrie   Heritage(E) HT 301
      Richlands women blues   Heritage(E) HT 301
      Nobody?s dirty business   Flyright(E) FLY 553
      Frankie (and Albert)   Heritage(E) LP 301
      Spanish fangdang [inst]   Flyright(E) FLY 553
      Talking Casey Jones   Flyright(E) FLY 553
      Pera Lee   Flyright(E) FLY 553
tk 1      If you don?t want me   Heritage(E) LP 301
tk 2      If you don?t want me   Heritage(E) LP 301
      Pay day   Flyright(E) FLY 553
      Got the blues that can?t be satisfied   Flyright(E) FLY 553
      Louis Collins   Heritage(E) LP 301
      Trouble I?ve had all my days   Flyright(E) FLY 553
      Stackolee [inc]   Heritage(E) HT 301
      See see rider   Heritage(E) HT 320
      Spike driver (John Henry)   unissued
      Pallet on the floor   Heritage(E) HT 320
      Rubber dolly   Heritage(E) HT 301
      Salty dog   unissued
      My Creole belle   unissued
      Let the mermaids flirt with me   Flyright(E) FLY 553
      Candy man   Flyright(E) FLY 553
      Coffee blues   Heritage(E) HT 301
      Hey baby right away   Flyright(E) FLY 553
      Slidin? Delta   Heritage(E) HT 301
      Casey Jones   unissued
      Stock time [inst]   Flyright(E) FLY 553
      Lazy blues   unissued
      Beulah land   unissued
      Oh Mary don?t you weep   Heritage(E) HT 320
      Glory glory hallelujah   unissued
      Keep on knocking   Flyright(E) FLY 553, Heritage HT 301
      What a friend we have in Jesus   Heritage(E) HT 320
      Waiting for you (I forgive you   Flyright(E) FLY 553
        before I go)

         Washington, DC, 23 July 1963
      Avalon Blues   unissued
      Stackolee   Heritage(E) HT 320
      Over in Glory land   Heritage(E) HT 320
      Walking the floor over you   unissued
      Camp meeting tonight on the   unissued
        old camp ground
      Blessed be the name of the Lord   unissued
      When the roll is called up yonder   unissued
      Royal telephone   unissued
      Blind man sit in the way and cried   unissued
      Where shall I be   Heritage(E) HT 320
      Weeping and wailing   Heritage(E) HT 320
      Farther along   Heritage(E) HT 320
      Do Lord remember me   Heritage(E) HT 320
      Were you there when they   unissued
        crucified my Lord
      Glory to his name   unissued
      I?ll fly away   unissued
      The ten virgins (When the   unissued
        bridegroom comes)
      Pay day   unissued
      If you don?t want me   unissued
      Nobody cares for me   unissued
      Corrina, Corrina   Heritage(E) HT 301
      Funky butt   Heritage(E) HT 301
      Cow hooking blues   unissued
      I?m satisfied   Heritage(E) HT 320
      Ain?t nobody but you babe   Heritage(E) HT 320
      The first shot missed him   unissued
      Shortnin? bread   Heritage(E) HT 320
      Redwing   unissued
      Fill that sack   unissued
      Four o?clock blues   unissued
      See see rider   unissued
      I got mine   unissued
      Bill Bailey   unissued
      Good morning Miss Carrie   unissued
      Jim Canaan   unissued
      Alabama bound   unissued
      Looking this way   unissued
      God?s unchanging hand   unissued
      Poor boy a long way from home   unissued
      Frankie No. 2   unissued
      Waiting for a train   Heritage(E) HT 320
      Liza Jane   unissued
      Salty dog No. 2   unissued
      Chicken song   unissued
      Funky butt   Heritage(E) HT 320
      You are my sunshine   unissued
      God?s unchanging hand   unissued
      Will the circle be unbroken   unissued
      I ain?t gonna study war no more   unissued
      You got to get ready   unissued

[uncle bud]

Thanks for doing this, John. It's about time we got around to John Hurt, isn't it. I had previously noticed in passing the different versions as they came up on the Victrola, but it's rather more substantial when you lay it out like this. The only other artist that comes to mind at the moment doing anything comparable is Gary Davis doing things like Candy Man, Two-Step Candy Man, Waltz Time Candy Man. And even there, it's more the rhythm and picking patterns changing.

[Johnm]

Thanks very much, Bunker Hill, for the complete list of the songs recorded in John Hurt's Library of Congress sessions on July 15 and 23, 1963.  In scanning the list, it looks as though only two songs from the July 15 session remain unissued:  "Hop Joint" and "Lazy Blues", while a larger number remain unissued from the July 23 session:  "Royal Telephone", "Were You There When They Crucified My Lord", "Nobody Cares For Me", "The First Shot Missed Him", "Fill That Sack", "Bill Bailey", "Jim Canaan", "I Ain't Gonna Study War No More" and "You Got To Get Ready".  Of those unissued titles, I believe the only ones that are not available by John Hurt on other commercial recordings are:
   * "Royal Telephone"
   * "Were You There When They Crucified My Lord"
   * "Fill that Sack"
   * "Bill Bailey"
   * "Jim Canaan"
   * "I Ain't Gonna Study War No More"
   * "You Got To Get Ready"
(Anyone who is aware of any of these titles being released elsewhere by John Hurt, please let us know.) It really is amazing how many songs were recorded on those two days.  It must have felt like cleaning out his memory for John Hurt.
You're right, uncle bud, that John Hurt is over-due for some attention at the Weenie site.  It's been almost eerily silent here with regard to his music, not by design, it's just turned out that way thus far.  It feels good to focus on his music a bit, for he, more than any other player, first got me interested in this music.
All best,
Johnm   

[Bunker Hill]

Thanks very much, Bunker Hill, for the complete list of the songs recorded in John Hurt's Library of Congress sessions on July 15 and 23, 1963.  In scanning the list, it looks as though only two songs from the July 15 session remain unissued

In early 1980 Bruce Bastin announced that Flyright had come to an agreement with the LoC to release the complete sessions over a specified number of LPs. The initial compilation appeared that year on Flyright "Mississippi John Hurt: Library of Congress Recordings 1963. Vol. 1: Monday Morning Blues" (Fly LP 553).  Vol. 2  "Avalon Blues" was released in 1982 on sister label Heritage (HT 301) and after a hiatus of six years volume 3 "Sacred & Secular" was released (HT320) and that was it. In 1989 Flyright released a CD drawn from the LPs which was reissued in 2000. All these can be seen at Stefan's MJH discography. Four and five years later we get two double CDs and still don't seem to have the complete LoC recordings! Bizarre. http://www.wirz.de/music/hurtfrm.htm

[banjochris]

I'd be willing to bet that the unissued title "You Got to Get Ready" is the same song released on the Last Sessions album as "You Got to Die" -- it has the refrain "Just as well to get ready, you got to die."

I have to say that "Jim Canaan" intrigues me the most of those unissued titles!
Chris

[Johnm]

You bring up a good point with regard to alternate title possibilities, Chris.  On the Library of Congress Recordings, the song which is almost always called "When I Lay My Burden Down" is called "Glory, Glory, Hallelujah", and "I Don't Love Nobody" is called "Ain't Nobody But You Babe", so there's definitely a potential for some confusion.
All best,
Johnm

[Blue in VT]

  It feels good to focus on his music a bit, for he, more than any other player, first got me interested in this music.

Absolutely long overdue attention to MJH...thanks John...as usual this is a wealth of information and of a depth a quality that you don't find on other sites.

Its was the random discovery of MJH's Candyman on a Bluesmasters compilation album that someone gave me that sent me down the rabbit hole of country blues many years ago...I'm still loving every minute of it.

Cheers...and thanks again!

Blue

[Stuart]

Four and five years later we get two double CDs and still don't seem to have the complete LoC recordings! Bizarre. http://www.wirz.de/music/hurtfrm.htm

Or maybe not so bizarre--but I share everyone's frustrations re: the complete recordings not being available and accessible. One would think (famous last words) that the LoC, as part of its mission, would make its corpus of recordings available either on a CD-on-demand format or as individual downloads. But the decision was probably made to license the recordings to commercial labels for various reasons. I don't know the details obviously, but one advantage of doing it this way is that the LoC gets a financial return on its holdings without having to do anything in house. The commercial label then makes decisions about how to package the recordings based on marketing considerations. I would think that there would be a market for the complete MJH LoC recordings, but how big that market would be in real numbers and sales is another matter.

[Johnm]

Hi all,
You make good points re the commercial availability of the entire Library of Congress sessions, Stuart.  Perhaps one problem is that there are at this point just 11 fugitive unissued tracks (not counting one or two alternate takes), which would make a pretty skinny program for a CD, though certainly not without precedent.  And as picked over as these sessions are at this point, perhaps the unissued takes have been left out of the commercial releases issued thus far for a reason--possibly seriously faulty tuning or a performance not up to John Hurt's normal standard.  There's no way of knowing this without hearing the takes, of course.  And with John Hurt's capacity for coming up with alternate versions of songs in his repertoire, the couple of unissued alternate takes are tantalizing, too.  For all we know, he may have had an altogether different way of playing "Salty Dog" than the versions we've already heard.
On a different note, one of the fascinating things about these recordings are the spoken exchanges between John Hurt and the folks who were in attendance at the session.  He sounds completely comfortable and unself-conscious, and not notably deferential, really just like someone in the presence of good friends.  There's a very funny exchange when someone (Dick Spottswood?, Tom Hoskins?, Joe Hickerson?) suggests that he perform "Waiting For A Train", and John Hurt says that he'll do it, but he can't yodel.  The back-and-forth around his yodeling abilities is great fun.  Considering John Hurt's age at the time, where he was from and the times in which he grew up, it's remarkable how comfortable he was with who he was.  I think that quality helped him connect with people in a way that was beyond the capability of some of the other rediscovered Blues musicians.
All best,
Johnm  

[lindy]

One hopes that the Lib o' Congress will eventually go the way of Smithsonian Folkways and make recordings from its archives available online. The LoC is already doing this to a limited degree--for example, these field recordings from Alabama:

http://www.loc.gov/folklife/guide/recordings.html

but of course, we would need to convince them to put recordings such as Hurt's 1960s sessions high on their priority list. Just think of all the juicy stuff those LoC librarians have to choose between when making decisions about what to digitize and put online and what has to sit in dusty storage before it gets its turn. I read somewhere that "In today's digital environment, it takes only 15 minutes to produce an amount of information equivalent to the 134 million analog (physical) materials the Library of Congress has acquired in more than two centuries."
 
The LoC does have a policy for making specific recordings of materials they have in their vaults. Looking at http://www.loc.gov/folklife/recordering.html, lots of questions are raised as to whether John Hurt's recordings are considered commercial or not, and whether a website such as Weenie might qualify as an educational site. The fees are pretty steep, too, but someone may be interested in pursuing this.

And for those few of you unawares of the stuff the Smithsonian is offering online, check out http://www.folkways.si.edu/. A good model for using the web to preserve and distribute non-commercial recordings.

Lindy