W7

                   

M i s s i s s i p p i John Hurt

When I first heard Mississippi John Hurt I could hear and see people I’ve known before. When I was a child every summer my grandfather, my mother, my father and I would get into our 1980s blue and white striped Chevrolet conversion van and head South to Mississippi. In Mississippi we would reunite with family in the Mississippi 
backwoods my family calls home.

People that reminded me of John Hurt could be met at our family reunions or should I say John Hurt reminds me of people I've met at family reunions. One man in particular that comes to mind is a man named Jigg. Jigg was a jokester full of life, even though probably not in good health. He was probably more outspoken than John Hurt but Jigg was a story teller. He told peculiar stories about his voodoo encounters, day to day life, and anything else he wanted to talk about. He captured everyones attention and imaginations and made my folks holler with laughter. In my eyes, Jigg and John are cut from the same cloth. Mississippi men who have a way of connecting to people in order to bridge worlds and entertain imaginations.  

Listening to John Hurt I could feel down home Southern comfort and simplicity in his voice. The same type of Southern comfort and simplicity that makes the pallet on the floor (of which I have slept on many times while in Mississippi and at home).

Through his music John Hurt represents the humble Mississippi Negro something like Jigg and even my great grandmother.  John Hurt himself was evidently very simple yet convoluted. Which is the same way I saw my great-grandmother who was never educated a day in her life but was so blissfully complacent yet all knowing.                          

The testament of a friend told by E.G. Dubovsky tells of how a humble Mississippi man of no particular formal education or global exposure had limitless wisdom capable of teaching us all the most important things in life. With that I can affirmatively say that knowledge and wisdom lay at the roots of humbleness and ignorance somewhere in the Mississippi backwoods.

Make me down 
Make me a pallet down, soft and low 
Make me a pallet on your floor 
Up the country 
Up the country by the cold sleet and snow 
I'm going up the country