Today! is the second studio album, but third body of work recorded by folk

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

/country blues

Country blues

Country blues is a general term that refers to all the acoustic, mainly guitar-driven forms of the blues. It often incorporated elements of rural gospel, ragtime, hillbilly, and dixieland jazz...

 musician Mississippi John Hurt

Mississippi John Hurt

John Smith Hurt, better known as Mississippi John Hurt was an American country blues singer and guitarist.Raised in Avalon, Mississippi, Hurt taught himself how to play the guitar around age nine...

. It was released in 1966 by Vanguard Records

Vanguard Records

Vanguard Records is a record label set up in 1950 by brothers Maynard and Seymour Solomon in New York. It started as a classical label, but is perhaps best known for its catalogue of recordings by a number of pivotal folk and blues artists from the 1960s; the Bach Guild was a subsidiary...

. This album contains some of the first commercial material recorded after his "rediscovery

American folk music revival

The American folk music revival was a phenomenon in the United States that began during the 1940s and peaked in popularity in the mid-1960s. Its roots went earlier, and performers like Josh White, Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Richard Dyer-Bennett, Oscar Brand, Jean Ritchie, John Jacob...

" in 1963, and is the first he recorded for Vanguard. The album spans several genres and styles of music, ranging from traditional blues and folk songs

Traditional music

Traditional music is the term increasingly used for folk music that is not contemporary folk music. More on this is at the terminology section of the World music article...

, to country

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

, to African-American spirituals. Along with Hurt's two previous releases, Today! helped to reveal his work to a wider folk

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

 audience. In 2009, the album was one of the twenty-five selections that were added to the Library of Congress

Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...

' National Recording Registry

National Recording Registry

The National Recording Registry is a list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically important, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States." The registry was established by the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000, which created the National Recording...

.

Background and recording

Hurt had made commercial recordings for the now-defunct Okeh Records

Okeh Records

Okeh Records began as an independent record label based in the United States of America in 1918. From 1926 on, it was a subsidiary of Columbia Records.-History:...

 in 1928; these did not sell well, and he drifted back into obscurity in southern Mississippi

Mississippi

Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...

. In 1952, Harry Smith's

Harry Everett Smith

Harry Everett Smith was an American archivist, ethnomusicologist, student of anthropology, record collector, experimental filmmaker, artist, bohemian and mystic...

 Anthology of American Folk Music

Anthology of American Folk Music

The Anthology of American Folk Music is a six-album compilation released in 1952 by Folkways Records , comprising eighty-four American folk, blues and country music recordings that were originally issued from 1927 to 1932.Experimental filmmaker and notable eccentric Harry Smith compiled the music...

, which contained two tracks by Hurt, was released. As well as this, a man had discovered a copy of Hurt's "Avalon Blues", which gave the name of Hurt's home town, Avalon, Mississippi

Avalon, Mississippi

Avalon is an unincorporated community in Carroll County, Mississippi, United States.Avalon is part of the Greenwood, Mississippi micropolitan areaIt is known as the home of the great bluesman Mississippi John Hurt....

. In 1963, Tom Hoskins and Richard Spotswood, two folk enthusiasts, located him in Avalon using the song. Hoskins convinced him to move to Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

, where there would be plenty of opportunities to perform to an increasing folk audience. There, he made his first post-war recordings, which were released on the Gryphon label as Folk Songs and Blues.

Hurt was invited to perform at the Newport Folk Festival

Newport Folk Festival

The Newport Folk Festival is an American annual folk-oriented music festival in Newport, Rhode Island, which began in 1959 as a counterpart to the previously established Newport Jazz Festival...

 in 1963, where he was greeted as a "living legend". Following this performance, he began to tour around various universities, and recorded a second album in 1964. Through touring, Hurt's audience continued to grow, which prompted a recording contract with Vanguard Records and the release of his third album, Today!, in 1966. A similar recording and performance schedule was adopted by the fellow bluesman Skip James

Skip James

Nehemiah Curtis "Skip" James was an American Delta blues singer, guitarist, pianist and songwriter, born in Bentonia, Mississippi, died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania....

 around this same time, who also recorded for Vanguard an album of the same name.

Reception

David Freedlander, of Allmusic, writes this of Today!:

Track listing

All songs written by Hurt, except when noted
Side one

1. "Pay Day"
2. "I'm Satisfied"
3. "Candy Man"
4. "Make Me a Pallet on the Floor
   Make Me a Pallet on the Floor
   "Make Me a Pallet on the Floor" is a blues/jazz/folk song now considered as a standard. The song's origins are somewhat nebulous and can be traced back to the 19th century. Various versions of the lyrics were first published in 1911 in an academic journal of ethnomusicology...
   
   " (trad.)
5. "Talking Casey
   The Ballad of Casey Jones
   "The Ballad of Casey Jones" is a traditional song about railroad engineer Casey Jones and his death at the controls of the train he was driving. It tells of how Jones and his fireman Sim Webb raced their locomotive to make up for lost time, but discovered another train ahead of them on the line,...
   
   "
6. "Corrina, Corrina" (trad.)

Side two

1. "Coffee Blues"
2. "Louis Collins"
3. "Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight" (trad.)
4. "If You Don't Want Me Baby"
5. "Spike Driver Blues" (trad., arranged John Hurt)
6. "Beulah Land" (trad.)