Mississippi John Hurt and Tom Waits

Taj Mahal and Alvin Youngblood Hart are both very much disciples of MJH. Also don't miss "Avalon Blues" a MJH tribute album that came out on Vangaurd in 2001. A really great album with tons of cool artists doing MJH tunes. Should be widely available. Happy listening!

Man, you ask a complex question....... When I started playing guitar John Hurt was one of my main influences. I loved country blues and from him I went on and tried to learn as many of the different styles from those old guy's as I could. John Hurt is pretty accessable. It might be hard to get into some of the other blues players of that period at first, but keep listening if this is the case.

Some of my favorites (hopefully you or others might like them too) are: in the Piedmont style, Reverend Gary Davis, Blind Blake, Bo Carter, and Blind Boy Fuller. Delta blues: Robert Johnson, Son House, Charley Patton (a monster), and Skip James. Texas guy's: Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Willie Johnson (another monster), and Muddy Waters (check out the "Plantation Recordings")........ Modern guy's you might like are: Ry Cooder, Taj Mahal, Paul Geremia, John Hammond Jr. (he made a record recently of all Tom Waits songs, BTW), The Jim Kweskin jug band, and Jourma Koukanen(sp?)..........

John Hurt is everywhere in modern music (or, at least roots variants), but so are a lot of the other old guy's. Listen to some of Beck's records, Wilco, The Rolling Stones, etc.

There was even a lot of cross-pollenation between them and the hillbilly music of that era; check out Jimmy Rodgers (the country one), Bill Monroe, etc.

Sorry to ramble...... hope it's helpful info

Chris

Thanks for all the recs guys. I went to amazon and took a listen and bought a bunch of stuff...

Avalon Blues tribute
Mance Lipscomb
blind willie johnson and bill monroe to start.

can't wait.

Kublakhan,

Once you've digested your current crop of purchases, all of which I second, you might also want to try Bill Morrissey's Songs of Mississippi John Hurt, a 1999 release on Philo. It's an admirable piece of work, and beautifully recorded.