51�Թ�

Michael Hurley, the eccentric singer and songwriter who pioneered the “freak-folk” movement and inspired generations of artists, has died.

“It is with a resounding sadness that the Hurley family announces the recent sudden passing of the inimitable Michael Hurley,” Hurley’s family said in a statement to Rolling Stone.

Hurley, born in Pennsylvania, honed his cracked perspective on bluegrass, blues and folk in the Greenwich Village folk scene in New York in the ‘60s, after producer and folklorist Fred Ramsey picked him up on a hitchiking ramble. He released his debut album, 1964’s “First Songs,” on Folkways, the acclaimed home of Woody Guthrie and curator Harry Smith’s “Anthology of American Folk Music.”

Hurley’s talents were manifold — he designed and illustrated most of his charming hand-drawn album art, and learned a diversity of instruments including banjo and fiddle.

Hurley lived in rural Oregon in his final years, releasing his last album, “The Time of the Foxgloves,” in 2021.