Style
Hurt incorporated a fast, pick-less, syncopated fingerpicking style that he taught himself. He was influenced by very few people; but does recall an elderly, unrecorded, blues singer from that area, Rufus Hanks, who played twelve-string guitar and harmonica. He also recalls listening to the country singer Jimmie Rodgers. Many of his songs were in very basic keys (C, G, D, F, etc.), his fingers picking notes within the chords. On occasion, Hurt would use an open tuning and a slide, as he did in his arrangement of "The Ballad of Casey Jones".
Read more about this topic: Mississippi John Hurt
Famous quotes containing the word style:
“His style is eminently colloquial, and no wonder it is strange to meet with in a book. It is not literary or classical; it has not the music of poetry, nor the pomp of philosophy, but the rhythms and cadences of conversation endlessly repeated.”
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