Michael Hurley (musician)

Before starting his recording career Hurley contracted mononucleosis and needed to wait several years until he could sign to a record label. Hurley's debut album, First Songs, was recorded for Folkways Records in 1963,{{cite web |title=First Songs: Review |first=Brian |last=Beatty |website=AllMusic |url={{AllMusic|class=album|id=first-songs-r107006|pure_url=yes}} |access-date = January 8, 2011}} on the same reel-to-reel machine that taped Lead Belly's Last Sessions. He was discovered by blues and jazz historian Frederick Ramsey III, and subsequently championed by boyhood friend Jesse Colin Young, who released his second and third albums on The Youngbloods' Warner Bros. imprint, Raccoon.{{cite web |title=Michael Hurley: Biography |first=John |last=Bush |website=AllMusic |url={{AllMusic|class=artist|id=michael-hurley-p4530/biography|pure_url=yes}} |access-date = January 8, 2011}}

In the late 1970s, Hurley made three albums for Rounder, all of which have since been reissued on CD. His 1976 LP Have Moicy!, a collaboration with Peter Stampfel and the Unholy Modal Rounders (a spin-off of the Holy Modal Rounders) and Jeffrey Frederick & The Clamtones, received much critical praise. Music critic Robert Christgau ranked it as his favorite album of the year.{{cite web |last1=Christgau |first1=Robert |title=Pazz & Jop 1976: Dean's List |url=https://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/pnj/deans76.php |website=robertchristgau.com |access-date=30 October 2023}}

In 1996, Koch Records released Wolfways with Hurley backed by Mickey Bones on drums. Tours with Son Volt and high praise from younger performers like Lucinda Williams, Vic Chesnutt, Woods, Calexico, Cat Power, Julian Lynch,{{cite web |url=http://pitchfork.com/news/42387-5-10-15-20-julian-lynch/ |title=5-10-15-20: Julian Lynch |website=Pitchfork.com |date=6 May 2011}} and Robin Holcomb followed.

In the 2000 film Hamlet, the main character listens to Hurley's song "Wild Geeses" while making a video that stands in for the original's "Murder of Gonzago" play-within-a-play "to catch the conscience" of King Claudius.

In 2001, Locust Music reissued Hurley's debut under the new title Blueberry Wine, with new artwork contributed by Hurley.

Gnomonsong released a new Michael Hurley album titled Ancestral Swamp on September 18, 2007. Backing was provided by longtime Hurley associate David Reisch of the Holy Modal Rounders and new friends Tara Jane O'Neil and Lewi Longmire.

In 2010, Secret Seven Records (San Francisco) and Mississippi Records (Portland) teamed up to reissue 100 copies of Hurley's rarest album, Blue Navigator, on 8-track tape. (Hurley was a long-time collector of music on 8-track tapes.)

In 2011, Hurley's first book of lyrics was released by the Quebec book publisher L'Oie de Cravan. It contains the original English lyrics to 19 of his songs calligraphed by the author, a foreword by critic Byron Coley and a French version by Marie Frankland, winner of the 2007 John-Glassco prize for translation.

Hurley performed at the annual Nelsonville Music Festival in 2008 and 2010–2019, and again in 2022.{{cite web |title=NMF 2012 Artists |url=https://nelsonvillefest.org/past-nmf-artists/nmf-2012-artists/ |website=Nelsonville Music Festival |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |title=NMF 2019 Artists |url=https://nelsonvillefest.org/nmf-artists/2019-artists/ |website=Nelsonville Music Festival |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |title=NMF 2022 Artists |url=https://nelsonvillefest.org/nmf-artists/ |website=Nelsonville Music Festival |language=en-US}}

His song, "Hog of the Forsaken", was used in the closing credits for the pilot episode of the series and the closing of Deadwood: The Movie.

Hurley appears in the Oregon-set family drama film Leave No Trace (2018), where he performs "O My Stars" at a bonfire alongside fellow Oregon-based musician Marisa Anderson.{{Cite news |last=Kermode |first=Mark |date=July 1, 2018 |title=Leave No Trace review – flawless, deeply affecting |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jul/01/leave-no-trace-review-debra-granik-winters-bone |access-date=December 14, 2022}}{{Cite news |title=Leave No Trace |work=Female.com.au |url=https://www.female.com.au/leave-no-trace-pn.htm |access-date=December 14, 2022}}

He lived in rural northwest Oregon and performed frequently in and around Portland.

In 2021 Hurley released a new album titled The Time of the Foxgloves. The New Yorker's Amanda Petrusich included it in her 10 best albums of the year list.{{Cite web|title=Michael Hurley − The Time of the Foxgloves|url=https://www.albumoftheyear.org/album/425229-michael-hurley-the-time-of-the-foxgloves.php|access-date=2021-12-19|website=Album of The Year|language=en-US}}{{Cite web|date=2021-11-26|title=The Best Music of 2021|url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/2021-in-review/the-best-music-of-2021|access-date=2021-12-19|website=The New Yorker|language=en-US}}

Hurley was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, on December 20, 1941, and grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.{{cite book|title=The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music|editor=Colin Larkin|publisher=Guinness Publishing|date=1992|edition=First|isbn=0-85112-939-0|page=1211}}{{cite web|title=Michael Hurley, a Singer Both Eccentric and Inspirational, Dies at 83|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/10/arts/music/michael-hurley-dead.html|date=April 10, 2025|last=Sandomir|first=Richard|publisher=The New York Times|access-date=April 10, 2025}} He began playing and writing songs at the age of 13. He recorded his first album, First Songs at the age of 22. He also lived in New Jersey, Massachusetts, California, Vermont, Ohio, Florida, and most recently in Oregon.{{cite news |url=https://www.wweek.com/music/2023/02/08/michael-hurley-walks-among-us/ |newspaper=Willamette Week |date=February 8, 2023 |title=Michael Hurley Walks Among Us |last=Cohen |first=Jason |access-date = March 22, 2025}}

Hurley self-published at least three magazines. The Underground Monthly, The Outcry, and The Morning Tea. He also created several comic books featuring Jocko and Boone, Greenbriar Kornbread, and Mama Molasses, among other characters.{{cite news |last=Coley |first=Byron |title=On the trail of the lonesome Snock |issue=35 |publisher=Arthur |date=August 2013}}

Hurley liked to call himself Elwood Snock, Doc Snock, Snockman, The Snock, or Snock. Hurley did much of the artwork for his own albums. Two oft-featured cartoon werewolves, Jocko and Boone, were something of a theme across Hurley's musical career, even appearing in their own comics. Both are based on dogs that Hurley's family owned when he was a child.

Hurley had three children with his former wife, Marjorie, whom he called "Pasta",{{cite web |last1=van den Elzen |first1=Frank |last2=Gaffney |first2=Leslie |title=Michael Hurley Interview |url=http://www.furious.com/perfect/michaelhurley.html |website=Furious.com |date=1997}} two sons, Jordan and Colorado, and a daughter, Daffodil. He had a son, Rollin, with a girlfriend, Kim, and a daughter, Wilder Mountain Honey, with another girlfriend, Bethany.

Hurley died on April 1, 2025, in Portland, Oregon, while being rushed to the hospital after stopping breathing. He was 83. Hurley was being driven home after returning from playing a show the previous day in Asheville, North Carolina, and also played two shows on March 28 and 29 in Knoxville, Tennessee.{{cite news |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/michael-hurley-dead-obit-influential-outsider-folk-singer-1235310171/ |title=Michael Hurley, Influential Outsider Folk Singer, Dead at 83 |date=April 3, 2025 |work=Rolling Stone}}

• First Songs (1964) (Folkways)
• Armchair Boogie (1971) (Raccoon/Warner Bros.)
• Hi Fi Snock Uptown (1972) (Raccoon/Warner Bros.)
• Have Moicy! (1975) credited to Michael Hurley/The Unholy Modal Rounders/Jeffrey Frederick & the Clamtones (Rounder)
• Long Journey (1976) (Rounder)
• Snockgrass (1980) (Rounder)
• Blue Navigator (1984) (Rooster)
• Watertower (1988) (Fundamental)
• Land Of Lofi And Redbirds (1988) (Bellemeade Phonics)
• Excrusiasion '86 (1988) (Bellemeade Phonics)
• Growlin' Bo Bo (1991) (Bellemeade Phonics)
• The Woodbill Brothers (1992) (Bellemeade Phonics)
• Wolfways (1994) (Veracity)
• Parsnip Snips (1996) (Bellemeade Phonics)
• Bellemeade Sessions (1997) (Blue Navigator)
• Weatherhole (1999) (Field Recording Co.)
• Live in Edinburgh (1999) (self-released CDr)
• Blueberry Wine (rerelease of 'First Songs' with new artwork) (2001) (Locust Music)
• Sweetkorn (2002) (Trikont/Bellemeade Phonics)
• Down in Dublin (2005) (Blue Navigator)
• Ancestral Swamp (2007) (Gnomonsong)
• Ida Con Snock (2009) (Gnomonsong)
• Blue Hills (2010) (Mississippi Records)
• First Songs (LP rerelease on Smithsonian, 2010)
• Wildegeeses/South in Virginia 7" (Mississippi Records)
• Back Home With Drifting Woods (Mississippi Records/Nero's Neptune Records split release)
• Fatboy Spring (Mississippi Records)
• Land of LoFi (2013) (Mississippi Records)
• Bad Mr. Mike (2016) (Mississippi Records)
• Redbirds at Folk City (2017) (Feeding Tube Records)
• Living Ljubljana (2018) (Feeding Tube Records)
• The Time of the Foxgloves (2021) (No Quarter)

{{reflist}}

• [http://www.snockonews.net/ Official site]
• {{imdb name|4097355}}
• {{discogs artist|Michael Hurley}}
• [http://www.gnomonsong.com/michaelhurley/ Michael Hurley] at [http://www.gnomonsong.com/ Gnomonsong] Devendra Banhart's & Andy Cabic's label
• [http://www.bluenavigator.net/ Michael Hurley] at [http://www.bluenavigator.net/ Blue Navigator Fanzine & Record Label]
• [http://www.rounder.com/?s=michael+hurley Michael Hurley] at [http://www.rounder.com Rounder Records]
• {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060515075313/http://www.eastcentralone.com/agency/michaelhurley.html |date=May 15, 2006 |title=Timeline}}
• [http://stateofmindmusic.com/index.cfm?entry=806 2009 Interview: "The Vermonters Wanted Me to Play Hank Williams: A Conversation with Michael Hurley"]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20090219173919/http://blip.tv/file/1700907 Short Documentary Film on Michael Hurley by filmmaker] Marc Israel

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Category:1941 births

Category:2025 deaths

Category:American folk singers

Category:American male singer-songwriters

Category:Musicians from Bucks County, Pennsylvania

Category:Singer-songwriters from Pennsylvania

Category:People from Astoria, Oregon

Category:Singer-songwriters from Oregon

Category:Light in the Attic Records artists

Category:American outsider musicians