John Peel Wiki

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UPDATE: As the change is now in force for some users, I have switched the navigation to the simplified one for the new system. Please check Navigation in the Help section if you can't find things. I also initially made small adjustments to the front page layout, but have now reverted to the old look until all users are on the new system.

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John Peel Wiki
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Michael Hurley

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Michael Hurley

Michael Hurley December 20, 1941 – April 3, 2025) was an American folk singer who was essential to the Greenwich folk music scene of the 1960s and 1970s. He was able to play a wide variety of instruments. Michael Hurley was also a cartoonist and a painter. Michael Hurley's music was often described as "outsider folk."

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 1965 on the same reel-to-reel machine that taped Leadbelly'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 2nd & 3rd albums on The Youngbloods' Warner Bros. imprint, Raccoon. 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 the Holy Modal Rounders and Jeffrey Frederick & The Clamtones, was named "the greatest folk album of the rock era" by The Village Voice's Robert Christgau. (Read more at Wikipedia)

Links to Peel[]

Michael Hurley was one of the more individualistic, or as Peel put it (see below) "idiosyncratic" artists to emerge from the US folk scene.

Michael_Hurley_-_I_Still_Could_Not_Forget_You_Then

Michael Hurley - I Still Could Not Forget You Then

He came to Peel's attention in the early 1970s through his LPs for Raccoon, at a time when Warner Brothers and its associated labels were signing many artists with underground credibility but little obvious commercial potential, among them Peel favourites like John Fahey and Captain Beefheart. He became a lasting favourite of Peel and Andy Kershaw, his records being played fairly frequently by both DJs over the years, and eventually he appeared in session on the programme in 1999..

Festive Fifty Entries[]

  • None

Sessions[]

One session. No known commercial release.

1. Recorded in Dublin 1999-08-22. First broadcast 11 November 1999.

  • O My Stars / Driving Wheel / Nat'l Weed Growers Assoc / Your Old Gearbox / I Think I'll Move

Other Shows Played[]

1970s
1980s
1990s


2000s

See Also[]

External Links[]

Reference[]

  1. ↑ It is likely that Peel is referring to Album Cover Album, first published in 1977. From the looks of it, he never received any credit in the book either.
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