***Tracing the lineage and citing the fore-bearers of the New Weird America, one can’t help but mention the music of bizarre folk singer/guitarist/artist MICHAEL HURLEY. If you haven’t been following his career since the 1970’s (when he was collaborating with the likes of the Holy Modal Rounders and Jesse Colin Young) then you probably discovered him in the past couple of years via Devendra Banhart’s and Andy Cabic’s label Gnomonsong, who have released Hurley’s recent recordings. Hurley’s debut album, First Songs, was recorded for Folkways Records in 1965 on the same reel-to-reel machine that taped Lead Belly’s Last Sessions. He was discovered by blues and jazz historian Frederick Ramsey III, and subsequently championed by boyhood friend Jesse Colin Young, who released Hurley’s next two album on The Youngbloods’ Warner Brother’s imprint, Raccoon. How’s that for cred? In the 1970s, Hurley made three albums for Rounder Records; Have Moicy!, which Robert Christgau of The Village Voice called “The greatest folk album of the rock era,” Long Journey, which features the song “Hog Of The Forsaken,” as heard in HBO’s Deadwood, and Snockgrass which features PETER STAMPFEL of the Holy Modal Rounders. All three are now making a long awaited return to vinyl after several decades.