Mississippi John Hurt was reportedly born in Carroll County, Mississippi on July 3, 1893. But some sources, including his gravestone, say his date of birth is March 8, 1892.
Born in the nineteenth century less than thirty years after the end of the Civil War, Hurt lived to see the start of the Civil Rights movement, giving us some fantastic music along the way.
Hurt first recorded in the late 1920s, but his music found no audience. And then the record company went out of business during The Great Depression. So, Hurt returned to work as a sharecropper in Avalon, Mississippi.
But new fans discovered Hurt when his recordings of “Frankie” and “Spike Driver Blues” appeared in Harry Smith’s collection The Anthology of American Folk Music in 1952. And in 1963, music collector Tom Hoskins found Hurt based on Hurt’s song “Avalon,” which referred to his hometown.
Hoskins convinced Hurt to return to performing. Hurt’s performance at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival helped re-launch his career. He performed across the country, appeared on television, and recorded new albums.
Hurt’s musical style crossed different genres, including blues and folk. He played his guitar with a unique syncopated fingerpicking style that he taught himself.
Below is a fantastic 1965 recording of Mississippi John Hurt singing “Lonesome Valley” on folksinger Pete Seeger’s TV program, Rainbow Quest.
Hurt got to enjoy his new success for a handful of years, dying in November 2, 1966. But, man, we are lucky he found his way back from obscurity.
Little Eva got a big break as a result of a babysitting job, leading to her hit recording of “The Loco-Motion.”
Eva Narcissus Boyd, who became known as Little Eva, was born on June 29, 1943. Although she is best known for her recording of “The Loco-Motion,” she recorded several other songs such as “Keep Your Hands Off My Baby,” “Let’s Turkey Trot,” and “Old Smokey Loco-Motion.”
“Loco-Motion” and a Big Break
Little Eva had her big break as a teenager when she was babysitting for singer Carole King and her husband Gerry Goffin. King and Goffin wrote the song “The Loco-Motion” and asked Little Eva to sing the demo.
King and Goffin loved the demo. So, they released Little Eva’s version of the song, which became a No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hit in 1962.
Not many videos exist of Little Eva performing. The above video for “The Loco-Motion” seems to cobble together different scenes so it appears she performs the entire song. But reportedly the only existing video of her singing “The Loco-Motion” is a short clip from the show Shindig!
Below, however, is Little Eva singing “Let’s Turkey Trot,” another dance song. She performed the song on a March 3, 1965 episode of Shindig!
After “The Loco-Motion”
After “The Loco-Motion,” Little Eva worked with King and Goffin but she never saw the success of “The Loco-Motion” again. Little Eva recorded a demo for another King and Goffin classic, “One Fine Day.” But The Chiffons instead recorded the official release, scoring a hit with it.
Instead of getting “One Fine Day,” Little Eva recorded “Old Smokey Locomotion.” The song was a re-hash of “The Loco-Motion,” combining it with “On Top of Old Smokey.” The odd combination is kind of fun nonetheless.
King and Goffin wrote another song inspired by Little Eva: “He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss).” But the inspiration was unfortunate. The songwriters based the song on conversations with Little Eva, who told them her abusive boyfriend loved her.
Little Eva did not get to record the song. Instead, the Crystals recorded “He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss),” which was produced by Phil Spector. King later said she regretted writing the song about domestic violence.
After her early success, Little Eva lived much of her life in obscurity in North Carolina. She never received much money from her music. And she retired from recording in 1971 and worked as a nanny. Still, she returned to doing some recording and touring on oldie circuits after Kylie Minogue had a 1988 hit with her version of “The Loco-Motion.”
Singing With the Angels
Little Eva performed until diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2001. She passed away April 10, 2003.
In 2008, a local TV station found out her grave in Belhaven, North Carolina needed some work. The city restored the cemetery area and marked Little Eva’s grave with gravestone featuring a steam locomotive and the words “Singing with the Angels.”
What is your favorite Little Eva song? Leave your two cents in the comments.
St. Paul & the Broken Bones are releasing their second album, Sea of Noise. The songs on the new album, including their first single “All I Ever Wonder,” address a variety of themes.
The Birmingham, Alabama band gave us some throwback soul music with their 2014 debut, Half the City. And the new single maintains much of the sound of the first album. But while the songs on Half the City mostly focused on love and heartbreak, the band with lead singer Paul Janeway are going for broader issues with the new album.
Janeway recently explained to Entertainment Weekly that he did not want to just focus on heartbreak songs because “I’m a happily married man. I wanted new sounds and ideas.” So, the new album brings that great St. Paul & the Broken Bones sound to address some modern societal issues.
The first single from the album, “All I Ever Wonder,” is a call to action of sorts. Janeway explains how it is easy to be apathetic, but, “You’ve got to stand for something.”
I can’t tell what side I’m on; I can’t tell what’s right or wrong; We can’t ever just sing one song; Love goes hate goes now I’m left all alone.
Check out “All I Ever Wonder,” complete with the band’s brass instruments and a touch of the band’s throwback Otis Redding sound.
Sea of Noise hits stores and the Internet on September 9, 2016.
What is your favorite song by St. Paul & the Broken Bones? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Although Sturgill Simpson’s voice is most often compared to Waylon Jennings, his choice in music often connects him to a wide variety of artists. So it was pretty cool recently to see he had performed “You Don’t Miss Your Water” live.
“You Don’t Miss Your Water” was written by William Bell, who released his own version of the song on Stax Records in 1961. Most people, however, may be familiar with Otis Redding‘s version that appeared on his 1965 album Otis Blue: Otis Redding Sings Soul.
Sturgill Simpson, however, is not the first person to take the soul song into country territory. The Byrds covered the song on Sweetheart of the Rodeo (1968), with Roger McGuinn doing lead vocal work on the official release even though Gram Parsons had originally recorded the lead.
With such a rich history, a lot of people still do not know the song. So, it was great to see that Simpson performed “You Don’t Miss Your Water” at First Avenue in Minneapolis on Sunday, June 5, 2016. Check it out.
“You Don’t Miss Your Water” is a heartbreak song. The singer explains how how he took his lover for granted, but then he only realized what he had when the lover left: “You don’t miss your water/’Till your well runs dry.” It is a perfect song for both soul and country artists.
The Cleveland Cavaliers won one for the ages when they came back from a 3-1 deficit to win the NBA Championship. In doing so, they became the first major professional team from the city of Cleveland to win a championship since the Browns won in 1964. There are so many great stories out of the basketball series, including the greatness of LeBron James and the epic story of his departure and return to Cleveland. But wrapped up in that story is the fact that Cleveland never would have won this championship were it not for some instances of forgiveness trumping pride.
The Break Up and Reconciliation
There’s no way that I could make up, For those angry words I said. Sometimes it gets to hurting, And the pain goes to my head. — Iris Dement, “Sweet Forgiveness”
James left the Cavs in free agency for the Miami Heat in 2010. He notoriously announced the departure on an ESPN primetime special, outraging many in Cleveland. James, who grew up in northeast Ohio, had brought so much hope to the championship starved area. But now he was walking away. Of course, James had the right to look after his own career. But Cleveland had a right to be heartbroken too, even if the city held him to an impossible standard.
After James’s “The Decision” special, Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert posted a letter to the teams’s website. Gilbert referred to the star’s decision as a “cowardly betrayal” and worse. His letter, while angry, also reflected his dedication to the city of Cleveland. Meanwhile, many in the city burned their LeBron jerseys.
Some people outside the Cleveland area did not understand the animosity. But having lived in Cleveland and experiencing many of the infamous sports heartbreaks there, I understood completely.
But in 2014, James returned to Cleveland because he wanted to bring a championship to the city. This time, he announced his decision in a heartfelt letter to the fans on the Sports Illustrated website.
It would have been hard to blame him if he stayed in Miami or went elsewhere, especially after the way Gilbert and some fans treated him. Of course, there were ways it made sense for him to come back. The return would help seal his legacy if he could bring the city a basketball championship. And, yes, Cleveland benefited from the reunion too.
But in order for him to return, it also took a bit of forgiveness. When there is a breakup, nasty things are said that can make it difficult to reconcile. Even with all of the nastiness and anger, James and Gilbert put that anger aside. And James and the fans somehow found some love and forgiveness. In his Sports Illustrated announcement, he asked, “Who am I to hold a grudge?”
Championships are built on a lot of things like talent, skills, money, sweat, luck, and effort. But this one also was built on forgiveness.
Forgiveness in Song
Sweet forgiveness, dear God above. I say we all deserve, A taste of this kind of love.
There are not as many songs about forgiveness as one might expect. The first one that probably comes to mind is Don Henley’s “The Heart of the Matter” because of the way the song repeats the word “forgiveness”: “But I think it’s about forgiveness/ Forgiveness / Even if, even if you don’t love me anymore.” The song about a lover forgiving someone who broke his heart and moving on constitutes one of Henley’s greatest songs.
Johnston based the lyrics of “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Your Grievances” on several Biblical phrases in Ephesians 4. His song is both advice about not going to bed angry and encouragement to “keep that chin up.”
A more appropriate forgiveness song for the occasion is Iris DeMent’s “Sweet Forgiveness.” Like a lot of other forgiveness songs, “Sweet Forgiveness” seems to be about forgiving a lover or former lover. But it mainly is a tribute to the idea of forgiveness.
In the song, the singer is not the person doing the forgiving but the person being forgiven. The singer recognizes she is not deserving of forgiveness: “There’s no way that I could make up,/ For those angry words I said.”
Forgiveness often constitutes a first step toward healing. And it does not necessarily need to be earned to be given. That gift may accomplish a lot for the forgiver and the forgiven, because as DeMent sings, forgiveness is a “kind of love.”
We do not know for sure who first gave forgiveness in Cleveland, whether it was LeBron James, Dan Gilbert, or “the fans.” But forgiveness brought some love and joy. And it was a first step toward a world championship.
Below is a live version of Susan Tedeschi covering Iris DeMent’s “Sweet Forgiveness,” which first appeared on DeMent’s album Infamous Angel (1993).
Photo by Austin Bjornholt via Creative Commons. What is your favorite song of forgiveness? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Mississippi John Hurt was reportedly born in Carroll County, Mississippi on July 3, 1893. But some sources, including his gravestone, say his date of birth is March 8, 1892.
hits stores and the Internet on September 9, 2016.
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(2016).
The Cleveland Cavaliers won one for the ages when they came back from a 3-1 deficit to win the NBA Championship. In doing so, they became the first major professional team from the city of Cleveland to win a championship since the Browns won in 1964. There are so many great stories out of the basketball series, including the greatness of LeBron James and the epic story of his departure and return to Cleveland. But wrapped up in that story is the fact that Cleveland never would have won this championship were it not for some instances of 
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(1993).