WITH KEEN, Lake Tahoe-clear blue eyes and a shy, mischievous smile that reveals a gold-capped incisor, Michael Hurley exudes a boyish earnestness despite his wispy white hair. Hurley’s music, cited by some as the first freak folk, is pure Americana: a perfectly proportioned melting pot of bluegrass, blues, early jazz, ’50s rock and country, and ’60s Greenwich Village folk.
Though Hurley’s cult following has grown alongside his prolific, half-century-spanning discography, he’s never fully entered the mainstream. His debut record, First Songs, was released in 1964, but Hurley says he could count the number of shows he played that decade on one hand.
“There was all this bullshit about playing in coffee shops,” he says seated beneath the high ceilings of the Blue Scorcher Bakery & Café in Astoria. “I never considered this a way to make a living. In order to survive, I worked jobs.”