Michael Hurley

• Name — Michael Hurley • Born — 20 December 1941 • Birthplace — Jersey City, New Jersey, U.S. • Died — 1 April 2025 • Place of death — Portland, Oregon, U.S. • Instrument — * Vocals • guitar • fiddle • banjo • Occupation — Musician • Genre — * Traditional folk • outsider • Years Active — 1963–2025

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, 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. Hurley spent much of the early 1970s as an itinerant performer in Vermont, working odd jobs on the side. 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. 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, 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. 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. He lived in Brownsmead 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.

Hurley was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, on December 20, 1941, and grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. 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. 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. 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", 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 he stopped breathing. He was 83. Hurley was being driven home after returning from playing a show the previous day in Asheville, North Carolina, and also playing two shows at Big Ears Festival on March 28 and 29 in Knoxville, Tennessee.