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Down In Dublin

1. Goners
2. What I'd Give
3. Rough and Rocky
4. Slurf Song
5. Uncle Smoochface
6. Monkey on the Dual Carraigeway
7. Have I Told You Lately
8. Gooseball Brown
9. I Don't Care X 3
10. Pancho and Lefty
11. Whiskey Willie
12. You Got To Say

If you have never heard of Michael Hurley, don't worry - you are not alone. Last year we asked Bluegrass legend Peter Rowan what he thought of him and Rowan retorted: 'Michael who? Never heard of the guy...' But don't let that put you off. The cognoscenti all agree Hurley is an international treasure - one of America's great singer-songwriters commuting to and fro along his magical path somewhere between country, folk and blues - who has, uniquely, pulled off the extraordinary feat of being a legend that no-one has heard of. His albums are full of weird and enchanting tales in which Hurley lovingly chronicles the plight of life's outsiders. It could be depressing but it never is because Hurley rarely feels sorry for himself. In his world you don't dwell on the right royal screwing that life has handed you - you can usually see the funny side even when you're lying in the gutter.

DOWN IN DUBLIN was recorded in September 2003 after a triumphant tour of the
UK with Hurley on vocal, guitar, banjo and fiddle, longtime sidekick Dave Reisch on bass, Thurstan Binns adding zip on drums and the Rough Deal String Band weighing in with banjo, fiddle, guitar and mandolin. It's a delightful mix of the traditional, the off-beat and the downright bizarre as Hurley leads the ensemble through 12 songs - some upbeat, some wacky, others so laid back they make JJ Cale sound intense. As with Hurley's live shows, some of the songs start off almost hesitantly but then begin to soar as everything gels. As with the best work of Hank Williams, Blind Willie McTell and Bob Dylan, the formula is simple but so effective. Hurley's songs have a beguiling, nursery-rhyme-like quality which renders them infuriatingly catchy - beware, you find yourself unable to get them out of your head. But there is also hidden depth. And they always get better and better with every play.

In live performance these days Hurley's vocal sometimes betrays its 62 years of wear and tear, but here its authority is still very much intact. On 'What I'd Give' it is as powerful as - and strangely reminiscent of - Eric Burdon's on 'House of the Rising Sun'. Other highlights include a fine trucking version of Townes Van Zandt's classic 'Pancho and Lefty', and 'Rough and Rocky' in which, after a loose intro, the band sound like a bona fide Appalachian Bluegrass outfit, ending up as tight as the Del McCoury Band. Well, almost. The Irish influence on the session is profound and very simpatico - nobody will believe this but I swear Hurley's fiddle on 'Monkey on the Dual Carriageway' recalls Kevin Burke's on Arlo Guthrie's 'Last of the Brooklyn Cowboys'. All in all, a bit of a classic and a good place to begin your love affair with Hurley if you want to find him where he is now. Work your way back through his earlier classics and you will open a treasure chest stuffed full of gems.
Nigel Burnham, Maverick Magazine, November 2004

Nothing slows down the venerable Mr. Hurley—not a hangover, not a broken heart, or deer in the road. (Well, a deer might.) Like a reliable car doing 50 in a 75, he always gets there. On the heels of 2002’s “Sweetkorn,” this recording from Ireland, with the Rough Deal String Band, is warm and sounds live-in-the-studio. Meet “Uncle Smoochface”: “He runs into the ladies room ‘cuz he need to pee / He loves to meet the ladies when they take a leak.” Of note are re-recordings of his own “Slurf Song,” with added verses, and the excellent “Monkey on the Interstate.” Lucky us. Now can we get a boxed set?
Adrienne Casey, Inversion Magazine Online

No matter how difficult it may be to describe a particular friend or relative, you can find them a CD that’s equally hard to pin down. Whether this will be a winning combination or not is for others to say, but at the very least this won’t be a duplicated gift and they may have a hard time re-gifting or returning it, always a nice set-in-stone condition to consider. First up are a few offerings that are downright friendly, stepping across a number of genres with ease and grace. Michael Hurley’s latest is Down In Dublin, brought forth on the Irish Blue Navigator label, an imprint that’s pretty much dedicated to America’s most undercelebrated troubadour. His songs have the casual familiarity of a sweater with frayed elbows and, as I’ve said before, many a combo or solo act would do well to pepper their sets to the hilt with Hurley songs.
David Greenberger, Metroland 2004 Gift Guide

'Hearing one of Michael Hurley's songs for the first time can seem like you've known it all your life", a perceptive scribe once opined in No Depression, the magazine of all things Americana. Hurley is a sixtysomething American country/folk/blues maverick who has skirted around the mainstream for the past 40 years or so, a peripatetic songster and cartoonist who has kept the business out of his music and in doing so has built up a tiny but fervent following. These include Dubliner Brendan Foreman, who last year pulled this endearingly unkempt session together aided by the Rough Deal String Band. As an antidote to all things slick it has few equals, but Hurley's songs and performance, even his more obscure ramblings, have a deeper resonance in that they are rooted to the great tradition of American folk/country music. Hence the accuracy of the above quote.
Joe Breen, Irish Times