Michael Hurley

Two cartoon werewolves, Jocko and Boone, based on family dogs from his childhood, roam through Michael Hurley's comics and cover art. He made much of it himself, and the loose, homespun sound inside was just as personal, a style often tagged 'outsider folk'.

Mononucleosis held him back for years, but at 22 he cut First Songs for Folkways on the same reel-to-reel machine that had taped Lead Belly's last sessions. Boyhood friend Jesse Colin Young issued his second and third LPs, Armchair Boogie and Hi Fi Snock Uptown, and in the 1970s came Have Moicy!, a collaboration with Peter Stampfel and the Unholy Modal Rounders.

His tunes reached the screen, with 'Hog of the Forsaken' closing Deadwood's pilot. Settled in rural Oregon, he kept at it with The Time of the Foxgloves and Broken Homes and Gardens, and died in 2025, aged 83, days after playing Big Ears Festival.