Music for Your Week: 3hr Michael Hurley Playlist

Plus a LIVE session with Austin Kleon today at 1pm ET

Listen to last week’s special episode, Jim Morrison and Me: A New Documentary Awakens Old Passions

---

LIVE TODAY with AUSTIN KLEON

I’m going LIVE today 4/7 at 1pm ET with artist, writer

Austin Kleon

as part of the Substack Sessions on music and creativity.

I’m excited to finally meet Austin! I’m bringing some records and rubber chickens, etc. Who knows what’ll happen but I assume we’ll talk music, art, typewriters, studios, instruments and…Michael Hurley.

---

MICHAEL HURLEY PLAYLIST: 3hrs of crying and laughing

Hi - I know all you Michael Hurley fanatics were very sad to say goodbye to our hero last week. If you’ve ever met me or listened to my radio show you’ll know how much I love Michael Hurley’s music.

…searchin’ the endless highway for a shoulder to cry on

I even got to meet him a couple times and I corresponded with him a little bit back around 2009 (I of course kept every hand addressed envelope). He was cranky and never seemed remotely interested in talking to me, but that only made me love him more.

“I like original music. I like to listen to people who are playing themselves, not somebody else or who they think they should be. I like a raw truth. I like to celebrate the hilarity of life. The whole deal.”

It seems like there are so many people who still don’t know his music. If you’re one of them, I have to admit, I’m a little jealous. You’re about to go through a magical few months of falling deeply in love. I remember when it happened to me. I went totally f*cking bananas.

So below is a nice long playlist for the newcomers and for the Hurley superfans.

Some of my favorite records aren’t on the digital outlets but it really doesn't matter because, as I kept repeating in Friday’s live Farewell Michael Hurley Love Fest, ever single record he made is great. I don’t think I can say that about any other artist with such a huge body of work. No awkward 80s period. No annoying early records before he found his voice. No cornball period. No hotshot period. No late period fumbles. None of that. Everything he made (yes, everything!) is absolute perfection.