Hurley\'s debut album, First Songs, was recorded for Folkways Records in 1964[1] 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 his 2nd & 3rd albums on The Youngbloods\' Warner Bros. imprint, Raccoon.[2] In the late 1970s, Hurley made three albums for Rounder, all of which have since been reissued on CD. His 1976 LP Have Moicy, a collaboration with the Unholy Modal Rounders and Jeffrey Frederick & The Clamtones, was named \"the greatest folk album of the rock era\" by The Village Voice\'s Robert Christgau.