Hamilton musician’s songs get new life 45 years later

It’s been a whirlwind few months for Hamilton native John Hurd, whose single, “Tragedy,” was discovered 45 years after he and his band, The Revised Brotherhood, recorded it while he was a senior at Badin High School.

Tobias Kirmayer, founder of the small, independent German label, Tramp Records, tracked Hurd down earlier this year, and put the song, and its B-side, "Those Things," on a two-disc compilation of little-known American psychedelic funk and soul bands called "Down & Wired." It is available in album, CD and electronic formats, with Hurd's music also available on 45-rpm records.

“If they want it right away, they can just go to iTunes, and look up Revised Brotherhood, and there will be a picture of my record,” Hurd said. “They can choose between “Tragedy” and “Those Things.” I think “Down & Wired” is there, too, if they want all these other bands.”

“And there’s some seriously great bands from America on this thing,” Hurd said.

Hurd is particularly impressed with Dirty Martha’s version of The Zombies’ “She’s Not There.”

Meanwhile, Hurd, whose father was a jazz trumpeter, and who learned guitar and some organ from the late Hamilton guitar prodigy Roger Troutman is also assembling a band to record an updated version of “Tragedy.”

Hurd, who was a music minister for seven years at St. Paul Church in Hamilton’s Second Ward, also hopes to perform live in Hamilton next year.

“It’s a weird trip,” he said with a smile. “It’s been fun. So many people get joy out of some music getting discovered. It makes people float on air, in Hamilton and Miami University (where he works in housing and dining).”

Hurd’s discovery 4½ decades after the recording amazes him, because, “most people go out and they try to get somebody to hear them.” But in this case, Kirmayer happened upon his record, of which only 100 copies were made, and then successfully tracked down, from across the Atlantic Ocean, the “J. Hurd” who was listed on the record as the writer of the songs.

Kirmayer describes the compilation this way: “The album focuses on raw funky-soul music with a psychedelic touch. Fans of Sly & the Family Stone or The Voices of East Harlem may like it.”

Kirmayer says few people in Germany and Europe seem interested in the works of James Brown and soul music of the 1960s and 70s, “despite the fact that they laid the ground for the nowadays billion-dollar industry of R&B and Hip Hop artists.”

But, “I am still fascinated by the music which was created by those bands and which is equally as great as those of well-known artists,” he said, via email. “All I do is to try to help that it does not get lost in the digital world of the 21st century.”

“To be discovered because someone was listening and says, ‘I want to put that out again,’ is amazing,” Hurd said. Through Internet searches, he has learned his music is being sold by outlets in Italy, Poland, Portugal, England and Germany.

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