Although John Hurt’s style and repertoire are often imitated, his guitar sound is hard to duplicate. In this lesson, Steve James teaches you how to play like Mississippi John Hurt.
In the folk music boom in New York in the 1960s, the music of guitarist Mississippi John Hurt was a huge influence on players like Happy Traum, John Sebastian, and others.
Listening to players like Mississippi John Hurt, Reverend Gary Davis, and John Fahey will get your ear accustomed to fingerpicking blues. In this lesson, you’ll apply the techniques they’re known for to a 12-bar blues, but you can also use them to play ragtime, early jazz, and folk.
With Arkansas, John Oates—yes, that John Oates, of the ’70s and ’80s hitmakers Hall & Oates—delivers what will likely endure as the most surprising roots-music release of 2018.
In this Acoustic Guitar Session, Peter Case discusses the solo-acoustic inspiration he got from his blues idols Lightnin' Hopkins, Robert Johnson, and Mississippi John Hurt, which led the former Plimsouls member to discover the advantages--both artistically and economically--of going solo.