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Category: Blues

Mississippi John Hurt plays guitar. Behind him at a table sit Rae Korson and Joe Hickerson.

When a song became a road map: the Tom Hoskins collection and Mississippi John Hurt

Posted by: John Fenn

This is a guest post by Marcia Segal, a Processing Archivist at the American Folklife Center. Legendary blues singer Mississippi John Hurt’s song “Avalon Blues” appears on numerous recordings in the Tom Hoskins collection: “…Avalon, my hometown, always on my mind…” Hurt first recorded the song in 1928. In 1963, musician and blues music fan …