Mississippi John Hurt

[Wilson Gray]

Jesse Sheidlower writes:

 "... [Mississippi John] Hurt was _apparently_ genuinely thrilled and
touched by his later fans ..."

"Apparently"? Now, there's an understatement, if I've ever read one! A
Mississippi Negro in the '60's getting something from The Man other
than a long way to go and a short time to get there?! I'd bet a fat
man that he most definitely felt as though he had died and gone to
heaven.

St. Louis is not even Outstate Missouri, let alone Mississippi.
Nevertheless, that didn't keep Chuck Berry from being arrested, tried,
found guilty, and sent to the state prison *after* he was already
internationally famous. If he'd been a nobody, he'd probably still be
in prison today. The old days were bad, despite the claim of the
ancient Greeks that all days are good when they're old.

-Wilson Gray

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