The Guitarist obituary headline, “Michael Hurley, guitarist and singer/songwriter known as the ‘Godfather of freak folk,’ dies at 83,” was a real attention-grabber among the slew of Google Alerts the Ear receives. 

For those who don’t know: “Freak folk draws from traditional folk music and uses mainly acoustic instrumentation,” Wikipedia says, “but introduces elements of avant-garde music, baroque pop and psychedelic folk, often featuring uncommon sounds, themes and vocal styles.”

News of his death earlier this month was noted in Rolling Stone, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, People Magazine and USA Today, just to name a few. The announcement was all the more intriguing once it was revealed in another online obituary that Hurley, aka “Snock,” a name he made up for himself, actually lived in Astoria. 

“I used to pass through Astoria quite often back in the ‘70s and ’80s,” Hurley told Uncut, “and I wanted to live here ever since my first visit. I just never pulled it off until after 9/11. I drove out here and just never left.” He became a longtime supporter of KMUN.

On his YouTube page, it says he was a “folk singer-songwriter who was a part of the Greenwich Village folk music scene of the 1960s and 1970s. In addition to playing a wide variety of instruments, Hurley was also a cartoonist and a painter. Hurley’s music has been described as ‘outsider folk.’” His last album “The Time of the Foxgloves,” was released in 2021.

“The way music comes to you … it’s like dreaming,” he told The Guardian. “Something’s going on. Melodies just drop into my thinking.” He believed people responded to the “irregularity” of his music, “how it’s not ordinary.”

“Oftentimes, musicians have trouble with irregularities, but not everyone’s the same,” he noted. “That’s how it is. Some people feel its beauty.” (Screenshot: Tyler Little/KMUN)