BONUS TRACKS: Michael Hurley Passes Away at 83 and More Roots Music News from Bruce Springsteen and Kelsey Waldon
Hilary Saunders
Posted On April 4, 2025
Michael Hurley - Nelsonville Music Festival 2023 - Photo by Dylan Benedict
The roots music community was stunned to hear about the passing of “outsider folk” singer-songwriter Michael Hurley yesterday at the age of 83 years old. The news was ostensibly broken by Brooklyn-based venue Union Pool, which posted a photo of musician in front of its red, velvet stage curtain and framed by bulb lights.
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As his family wrote in a statement:
It is with a resounding sadness that the Hurley family announces the recent sudden passing of the inimitable Michael Hurley. The “Godfather of freak folk” was for a prolific half-century the purveyor of an eccentric genius and compassionate wit. He alone was Snock. There is no other. Friends, family, and the music community deeply mourn his loss.
Hurley, who was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania and began his career in the Greenwich Village folk scene in the 1960s, later became a cult legend in his adopted home of Oregon. Over the course of his six-decade career, he released albums with Smithsonian Folkways, a major label Warner Bros. imprint called Raccoon, Rounder Records, beloved Portland indie label Mississippi Records, and independently. Often, Hurley also illustrated the quirky album artwork himself.
Hurley’s music and idiosyncratic humor influenced all corners of roots music. His contemporary Peter Stampfel, whose group The Unholy Modal Rounders played with Hurley and Jeffery Frederick & The Clamtones on their 1975 Rounder debut Have Moicy!, was one of the first to comment on Facebook: “The terrible news is true. Michael Hurley is dead.” He was truly “your favorite songwriter’s favorite songwriter” and other tributes have come in swiftly.
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His previous record labels also shared the following below and here. And another indie label, Tompkins Square, will also release one of Hurley’s last recorded songs, a cover of Charlie Poole’s “Milwaukee Blues,” on the Record Store Day exclusive, Treasures Untold: A Modern 78 RPM Reader.
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No Depression followed and supported Hurley’s art from the publication’s inception; archival reviews of the reissue of his 1980 LP Snockgrass, 2005 LP Down In Dublin, and 2007 LP Ancestral Swamp are linked here. He was also regularly photographed for, and featured in, the Through The Lens column.
When No Depression shared the news on Instagram yesterday, Joey Burns of Calexico wrote, “Hard to wake up to this sad news of Michael Hurley passing away. John and I recorded an album with Michael in the early 2000’s I wonder if anyone has analog tapes from the session. Either way we’re gonna miss his creative spark and incredible songs and art. Viva Michael Hurley.”
If anyone has those tapes, email letters@nodepression.com or reach out to Calexico directly!
Elsewhere in the roots music community, Compass Records released a 30th anniversary edition of Guy Clark’s Dublin Blues on CD and color vinyl today. The reissue also includes a never-before-heard track called “Once More With Caution,” featuring Emmylou Harris and Verlon Thompson on vocals and Darrell Scott on guitar.
Bruce Springsteen announced a follow-up box set to his 1998 set, Tracks. The seven-disc collection called Tracks II: The Lost Albums, which comprises 83 songs, is due out June 27 via Sony Music. Learn more here.
Country singer-songwriter Kelsey Waldon announced her sixth studio album with Oh Boy Records. Every Ghost is due out June 20 and fans can listen to lead single “Comanche” below.
WHAT WE’RE LISTENING TO:
North Mississippi Allstars – “Still Shakin'”
S.G. Goodman – “Fire Sign”
Lola Kirke – “Easy on You”
Lucius – “Stranger Danger”
Men I Trust – Equus Asinus
