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Wednesday, April 22, 2026

The Mystery of Geeshie Wiley: A Blues Music Phantom and Legend | John/Still Livin' the Blues

The Mystery of Geeshie Wiley:

A Blues Music Phantom and Legend.

- Little is known of her life, and there are no known photographs of her. Despite her influence and popular recordings in the early 1930s, particularly "Last Kind Words Blues," she remains a mysterious figure with no surviving portraits. She may have been born Lillie Mae Boone (November 14, 1908–July 29, 1950), later Lillie Mae Scott.

- Since very little is known about her life, she’s often been called a "phantom" of the blues. She may have been from Natchez, MS, worked in medicine shows in the 1920s, and possibly was married to musician Casey Bill Weldon. These stories exist, but can’t be confirmed.

- According to the blues historian Don Kent, Wiley "may well have been the rural South's greatest female blues singer and musician".

- She has six known tracks: "Last Kind Word Blues," "Skinny Leg Blues," "Pick Poor Robin Clean," "Eagles on a Half," "Motherless Child Blues," and "Over to My House" (the latter two with Elvie Thomas).

- Steve Leggett at Allmusic states, "Wiley's vocal on 'Last Kind Word Blues' is by turns weary, wise, angry, defiant, despairing, even wistful, and is simply one of the best performances in early country blues."

- It is believed that fewer than ten original copies of Wiley's records have survived.

- “If Geeshie Wiley did not exist, she could not be invented: her scope and creativity dwarfs most blues artists. She seems to represent the moment when black secular music was coalescing into blues.” - Don Kent, liner notes to Mississippi Masters: Early American Blues Classics 1927–35

- "Pick Poor Robin Clean" is performed in the film Sinners, directed by Ryan Coogler. Geeshie Wiley's original version of "Pick Poor Robin Clean" and its cover for the film are featured on the Sinners original motion picture soundtrack. #sinners

John said: I’ll post some YouTube links to her songs below! Check them out!

Thanks,

John/Still Livin' the Blues

🎶

#blues

#music

#femaleartist

#female

#history

Geeshie Wiley - Last Kind Words Blues [remastered 2021]

Geeshie Wiley - Pick Poor Robin Clean

from John Fahey's final Revenant masterpiece in blues

Geeshie Wiley - Motherless Children Blues [remastered 2021]

Pick Poor Robin Clean | Sinners (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

ABOUT SINNERS:

"Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back."

FOLLOW SONY SOUNDTRACKS:

► Facebook: / sonymusicsoundtracks

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Now I should say I thought the movie was truly dreadful but this made me sit back up and take note and I am ashamed to say I DID NOT know about Geeshie and this article and clips are fascinating - Thanks to John over at Still Living’ The Blues

Steve Wynn, R.E.M. & Natalie Merchant - McCabe's Guitar Shop, Santa Monica, CA, 5-24-1987 | Albums That Should Exist

Steve Wynn, R.E.M. & Natalie Merchant - McCabe's Guitar Shop, Santa Monica, CA, 5-24-1987

Now as Paul hints this is really intersting and if a fan of Nat and 10,000 Maniacs, R.E.M and THe Dream Syndicate (who isn’t?) then this is really worth checking out! Paul he say: Here’s a very an interesting bootleg concert recording, all of it acoustic. It was billed as a "Texas Records Lawsuit Benefit." I don't know what that was about. If anyone does, I'll put in the explanation here.

Probably the biggest name at the time was R.E.M. But also, Natalie Merchant, then still with 10,000 Maniacs, had a prominent role. Another key figure was Steven Wynn. Some others were involved. I will get to them a minute.

Perhaps it's a bit of a stretch to call it "R.E.M.," since most of the time it was just lead singer Michael Stipe and lead guitarist Peter Buck. But they were joined for the last three songs by bassist Mike Mills. So the only one missing was drummer Bill Berry. But that makes sense, since this was a drum-free acoustic performance (for the most part). Note that, at the time, it was pretty much unheard of for any members of R.E.M. to perform in acoustic mode. Later, R.E.M. did do some acoustic sessions, but they were rarely as stripped down as this.

If you haven't heard of Steve Wynn, he lead the band the Dream Syndicate from 1981 to 1989, then had a long solo career (and band reunions) after that. Here's his Wikipedia page:

Steve Wynn (musician) - Wikipedia

Also, this was a concert where everyone involved was clearly having fun and letting it all hang out, performing songs they otherwise would never or rarely have performed in concert. The venue, McCabe's Guitar Shop, has a lot to do with that. I've come across other concerts here that had various guest stars drop in and play some pretty random things, even decades after this. (Robyn Hitchcock, for instance, has played many interesting concerts here, with lots of guests.) It seems the people at the venue must have encouraged this format. The fact that the place is in Los Angeles, where many other musical people live or pass through, and the fact that it's so small, with room for only a hundred or two people, also must factor in. Many concerts here are less like normal concerts and more like a bunch of friends hanging out and playing music.

One downside to us listeners is that because the venue is so small, it's very rare to get bootleg recordings. After all, what are the odds of there being a bootlegger in a concert of two hundred people compared to one in a concert of 20,000 people? And when there are bootlegs, they typically are audience boots, that sometimes don't sound that good. That's why I haven't posted many concerts from this venue, even though they often are really special musically. But this one is a lucky exception, because it generally sounds very good as well. I say "generally" because I took this from three different sources, and some sources sound better than others. But a lot of it is at a soundboard level.

Getting back to who took part, as you can see in the artist name for this album, most of the songs involved Steve Wynn, R.E.M., and Natalie Merchant, solo and in various combinations. But there were others too. For instance, Peter Case played a few songs with Peter Buck of R.E.M. Case had been the main singer songwriter for the Plimsouls for much of the 1980s, but that band had broken up by the time of this concert. He soon settled into a long career in more of a folkie mode instead.

Jenny Homer is not well known, but she was a member of the band Downy Mildew. In 1987, the year of this concert, they put out their debut album. Here's the Wikipedia entry for that band:

Downy Mildew (band) - Wikipedia

Kendra Smith was a founding member of the Dream Syndicate, the band I mentioned above that was led by Steve Wynn. But she left after just a couple of years to join a new band, Opal. She must have stayed on good terms with Wynn though, considering they sang a duet here. She later became a solo artist. Here's here Wikipedia page:

Kendra Smith - Wikipedia

This is not all of the concert. I've included a text file that lists all the songs known to have been performed. I included most of what I was able to find. If anyone has more, please let me know. But there also was some that I didn't include because the sound quality wasn't as good as the rest. Plus, there actually was an early show and a late show, with similar set lists. I combined them into one show, since I only had pieces here and there. The band Downy Mildew and Opal performed short sets in both shows, but none of that is here.

I can't emphasize how unique and interesting this is, especially if you're an R.E.M. fan or Natalie Merchant fan. Just getting to hear their songs in acoustic mode is special. But also both of those acts did a lot of strange cover songs. Take track 39, prominently featuring Stipe and Merchant. It's a cover of "Leaving on a Jet Plane" while "Sunday Morning" by Margo Guryan was sung at the same time!

Nearly all of this is unreleased. However, "Maps and Legends" and "The One I Love" were released by R.E.M. on the B-side to their single of "It's the End of the World as I Know It (And I Feel Fine)."

This album is an hour and 52 minutes long.

01 talk (emcee)
02 talk (Steve Wynn)
03 Merritville (Steve Wynn)
04 talk (Steve Wynn)
05 Drinking Problem (Steve Wynn)
06 One More Cup of Coffee [Valley Below] (Steve Wynn with Bob Forres)
07 talk (Steve Wynn)
08 Days of Wine and Roses (Steve Wynn)
09 talk (Steve Wynn)
10 Solitary Man (Steve Wynn & Russ Tolman)
11 Walk, Don't Run - Baby, Please Don't Go (Peter Case & Peter Buck)
12 A Million Miles Away (Peter Case & Peter Buck)
13 talk (Peter Case & Peter Buck)
14 Sad Eyes (Peter Case & Peter Buck)
15 talk (emcee)
16 talk (Natalie Merchant)
17 The Fat Lady of Limbourg (Natalie Merchant)
18 talk (Natalie Merchant)
19 Don't Talk (Natalie Merchant)
20 talk (Natalie Merchant)
21 Hello Stranger (Natalie Merchant, Jenny Homer & Michael Stipe)
22 The Wind, the Wind (Natalie Merchant)
23 talk (Natalie Merchant)
24 Verdi Cries (Natalie Merchant)
25 talk (emcee)
26 The One I Love (Michael Stipe & Peter Buck)
27 talk (Michael Stipe)
28 Welcome to the Occupation (Michael Stipe & Peter Buck)
29 talk (Michael Stipe)
30 Disturbance at the Heron House (Michael Stipe & Peter Buck)
31 talk (Michael Stipe)
32 Finest Worksong (Michael Stipe & Peter Buck)
33 talk (Michael Stipe)
34 Maps and Legends (Michael Stipe & Peter Buck)
35 talk (Michael Stipe)
36 Harpers (Michael Stipe)
37 talk (Michael Stipe)
38 Damaged Goods (Michael Stipe, Peter Buck & Natalie Merchant)
39 Leaving on a Jet Plane - Sunday Morning (Everyone)
40 talk (Steve Wynn)
41 50 in a 25 Zone (Steve Wynn)
42 How Can You Mend a Broken Heart - Killing Time (Steve Wynn)
43 talk (Steve Wynn)
44 See that My Grave Is Kept Clean (Steve Wynn & Peter Buck)
45 Stagefright (Steve Wynn)
46 talk (Steve Wynn)
47 Too Little, Too Late (Steve Wynn & Kendra Smith)
48 More than a Pay Cheque (Natalie Merchant, Jenny Homer & Kendra Smith)
49 Hear the Wind Blow (Kendra Smith & Natalie Merchant)
50 A Campfire Song (Natalie Merchant)
51 The Counting Song [Wheel of Fortune] (Michael Stipe & Natalie Merchant)
52 Stretch My Hand (Michael Stipe & Peter Buck)
53 Spooky (Michael Stipe, Peter Buck & Mike Mills)
54 Fever (Michael Stipe, Peter Buck & Mike Mills)
55 So. Central Rain (Michael Stipe, Peter Buck & Mike Mills)

aww heck R.I.P - Dave Mason

FLAGGING DOWN THE DOUBLE Es - RAY PADGETT:The Rolling Thunder TV Special That Wasn’t [Apr 22]

1976-04-22, Belleview Biltmore Hotel, Clearwater, FL [two shows]

RAY PADGETT

APR 22

Before the second Rolling Thunder tour kicked off, Bob Dylan and the band spent a week or so rehearsing at the Belleview Biltmore Hotel in Clearwater, Florida. Here’s how a couple of the band members described those rehearsals to me:

“I flew down to the Belleview Hotel in Florida for rehearsals. It looked exactly how it sounds, almost that place in that Peter Sellers movie where he was Chauncey [1979’s Being There]. A real old school, sprawling wooden hotel with ballrooms and all this kind of stuff… [Bob] didn’t show up for a while. He was a real nighthawk. We soon learned, it’s not really worth it to come at 3:00 in the afternoon for a rehearsal when Bob isn’t going to be there until midnight.” — Gary Burke

“The rehearsals were kind of nonexistent. We had gone down to Clearwater Florida and taken over this hotel to ostensibly rehearse, but Bob hardly ever showed up. So we didn’t know what the hell he wanted! As the bandleader, I would call rehearsals anyway. We’d show up and rehearse without Bob. I’d be singing the songs in his keys as a stand-in.” — Rob Stoner

Three shows after the tour began, they returned to that same hotel ballroom, this time to record a TV special. This was to be the TV special from the tour. That later Colorado show, the one that became Hard Rain, was just supposed to be a regular concert. They only decided to film it last-minute, to replace this first attempt from Florida; Bob had a contract to deliver something to the television network, and he ended up hating what they did in Clearwater.

He taped two shows, one early and one late. Neither was really a regular Rolling Thunder show, though combined they could become one. Fully half of the early show is solo-acoustic, almost like a 1966 show. Eight solo songs to open—he generally did two at the regular shows—then five Joan Baez duets (again, more than usual), then just a few songs with the band. The late show, on the other hand, is entirely full-band. No solo songs, no Joan duets.

When you watch the film, you can tell which songs come from which show from his headscarf. In a TV taping situation like this, you’re supposed to wear the same thing every time for continuity, but of course Dylan goes rogue. The early show, it’s orange; the late show, it’s blue.

*Two different shows, two different headscarves*

Despite the first three shows being sort of warmups for this taping, Dylan immediately plays a bunch of songs they hadn’t played before. In the early show, 7 of the 15 songs were tour debuts. In the late show, 8 of the 14 songs were. It’s typical Dylan to, when it comes time to tape the big TV special, throw out most of the songs they’d been practicing and throw in a bunch of stuff they hadn’t. Most of the full-band songs were holdovers from Rolling Thunder ’75, at least, but this is the only time the Rolling Thunder band ever played “Most Likely You Go Your Way”

read on here . . . . .

For Ray

Bob Dylan - You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go (Live 1976)

. . . . .and some boys we like too!

It struck me as funny back on Women’s Day (8 March) that there was a social media trolling backlash saying why isn't there a MEN’S DAY!?

DUH!

There is!

(of course)

and of course it’s older than Women’s Day, is late in the Autumn I think and around 19th November time! LOOK IT UP!

So for the gals and some of the fellows here’s some chaps we like! I was gonna wait til November but couldn’t wait that long . . . and nobody knew anyhoo!

Some of them are purty too!