SPIKE DRIVER BLUES A 1928 MISSISIPPI JOHN HURT SPECIAL

Although it's been quite trendy and quite common for modern day blues artists to cite ROBERT JOHNSON as the man who invented Missisippi delta acoustic blues for as long as anyone can remember, including slowhand ERIC CLAPTON, who literally worships him, I would rate MISSISIPPI JOHN HURT as not only the greatest delta blues guitarist but one of the greatest blues guitarists in any category - delta, Chicago, Memphis, Texas, skip, Kansas City, St Louis - the whole lot.


Forget all about ROBERT JOHNSON if you get to hear John Hurt or another delta pick player which I adore, at least the recordings he made on a good night, he being BIG JOE WILLIAMS, not to be confused with Kansas City jazz blues maestro JOE WILLIAMS. Big Joe recorded some great delta blues, mainly live bootleg recordings which are extremely hard for any blues fan to track down, but his best stuff is better than anything ROBERT JOHNSON recorded on a 78 back in the 1920's, take my word for it.

Now about MISSISIPPI JOHN HURT, a true gentleman of the delta blues genre, a black american who like most of his other peers sooner or later bolted out of Missisippi not only to evade the KKK but to have an oppurtunity to have a sustainable career as a recording musician in places like Chicago, Memphis, even New York when it come to MISSISIPPI JOHN HURT.

His rendition of SPIKE DRIVER BLUES in the clip above was towards the latter years of his life, probaly sometime during the 60's, but the song originally was one of 13 which he recorded way back in 1928 for the OKeh label, making it the oldest song i have ever featured on this blog, even though this performance took place decades later.

If you are a blues fan, and i mean a serious one and not a superficial one, you got to get a copy of MISSISIPPI JOHN HURT, AVALON BLUES : THE COMPLETE 1928 OKEH RECORDINGS. 13 brilliant and perfectly produced delta blues gold nuggets which were recorded in both Memphis and New York between February and December in 1928.