2 posts tagged “geeshie wiley”
Bonus: Here's Geechie Wiley's "Last Kind Word Blues."
Geechie Wiley might be familiar to viewers of Terry Zwigoff's film Crumb. She sings the terribly disturbing "Last Kind Word Blues," which is played over a freakish gallery of cartoonist Robert Crumb's artwork midpoint in the film. While not directly referring to that song, Crumb provides the perfect description of Ms. Wiley's blues as "apocalyptic." While much is made of the mysterious nature and histories of bluesmen like Robert Jonhson, the truth is Wiley is a far more vexingly obscure and spooky figure. Three photos of Johnson exist, he recorded over 29 sides, and interviews were conducted with many of his contemporaries which provided some background on the man. Wiley, on the other hand, left no photos, recorded only three sides, and most of her contemporaries either never heard of her or remembered little about her. It's a shame, because she was as adept as most of her male blues counterparts, switching between the dirge-like "Last Kind Word Blues" and the lively picking of "Pick Poor Robin Clean," which somehow makes the song even stranger, with lyrics like
I picked poor Robin clean, I picked poor Robin clean
I picked his head, I picked his feet, I woulda picked a spider but he wasn't fit to eat
