Mississippi John Hurt - Avalon Blues

John Hurt came from Avalon Mississippi, and aside from a couple of short sagas in his venerable life, he remained there, or nearabout. His life was storied, but the stories came from a localized world, the front porch and the corner store had greater significance than New York or Memphis. This painting is of an early memory when I lived in LaGrange Georgia. Once in a while my father would take me down to a barbeque joint by the tracks called CJ's where we would watch the trains go by - every once and a while an excursion steam train would run. Although Mississippi John Hurt comes from a world far apart from my own, the memory to me evoked a simplicity which I have hardly known since.