Henry Hurley

Henry Hurley: a friendly gentleman who lived in Flatwoods near Bert Garvin.  Henry was mainly a guitarist, but he also played a fine two finger style banjo.  He used to come to the Fraley's festival sometimes with a sister from Virginia whom Annadeene described as a very good blues singer.  He had been a good friend of Bill Williams, a black guitarist who worked in the Russell railway yards and had made two excellent LPs for Blue Goose (Williams had died not too long before I began to visit the region).  Gus Meade and I were just beginning our Kentucky record work and I wasn't sure whether I had anything to offer Henry in that line, so my only recordings of Henry were done that afternoon on Annadeene's little cassette recorder (I generally used a big, heavy Revox that couldn't be set up without a fair measure of fuss).

Part of the booklet notes, written by Mark Wilson, to the Musical Traditions Records 4-CD set Meeting's a Pleasure (MTCD341-4)