First Songs

It’s no secret that the current freak-folk crop (Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom, Espers, and many more) owe some of their best musical and lyrical riffs to the inventive spirit of East Village folk originator Michael Hurley; but still Hurley remains something of a shadowy figure, name-dropped rather than listened to, acknowledged rather than appreciated. Those curious to discover what all of the fuss is about need look no further than this, his breathtaking Folkways debut. Recorded shortly after he emerged from the same Bellevue convalescent ward where Woody Guthrie spent his last days, First Songs sees the history of American Roots Music filtered through a lens of wanderlust-addled beatitude. From the primal mythmaking of “Werewolf” (covered later to great effect by Cat Power) to the opiate tinged loner’s anthem “Tea Song,” the songs of Hurley’s debut burn with an incantatory power undiminished by the passage of decades. Though Hurley was just twenty-three when these recordings were made he seems to sing from centuries of experience, delivering ballads of itinerant desperation and visionary insight with a voice that recalls the ageless rasp of balladeers like Dock Boggs and Dave Macon. First Songs is a matchless slice of skewed Americana and a true keystone of contemporary roots music.