One of them, William Henry Carson, who played a guitar and was a friend of John's mother, often stayed at the Hurt home while courting a woman who lived nearby.

Okeh went out of business during the Great Depression, and Hurt returned to Avalon and obscurity, working as a sharecropper and playing at local parties and dances.

[8] In 1952, musicologist Harry Smith included John's version of Frankie and Spike Driver Blues in his seminal collection The Anthology of American Folk Music which generated considerable interest in locating him.

[12] This added to the American folk music revival which was blooming at that time and inspired the search for and the rediscovery of many other bluesmen of Hurt's era such as Son House, Skip James, Bukka White, Mance Lipscomb and Lightnin' Hopkins.

[6] Mississippi John Hurt made his last recordings at a hotel in New York City in February and July of that year though they were not released until 1972 on the Vanguard LP Last Sessions.

They've been covered by Bob Dylan, Dave Van Ronk, Jerry Garcia, Beck, Doc Watson, John McCutcheon, Taj Mahal, Bruce Cockburn, David Johansen, Bill Morrissey, Gillian Welch, The Be Good Tanyas, Josh Ritter, Chris Smither, Guthrie Thomas, Parsonsfield, and Rory Block[16] among others.

He was influenced by few other musicians, among them was Rufus Hanks, an elderly, unrecorded blues singer from the Avalon area who played twelve-string guitar and harmonica.

[4] According to the music critic Robert Christgau, "the school of John Fahey proceeded from his finger picking and while he's not the only quietly conversational singer in the modern folk tradition, no one else has talked the blues with such delicacy or restraint.

Fahey's posthumous live album, The Great Santa Barbara Oil Slick, also features a version of the piece, entitled "Requiem for Mississippi John Hurt".

Norman Greenbaum's eclectic minor hit, "Gondoliers, Shakespeares, Overseers, Playboys And Bums" refers to Mississippi John Hurt singing the blues.

[20] The British folk and blues artist Wizz Jones recorded a tribute song, "Mississippi John", for his 1977 album Magical Flight.

The Delta blues artist Rory Block recorded the album Avalon: A Tribute to Mississippi John Hurt, released in 2013 as part of her "Mentor Series".