52 weeks of blues

Geeshie Wiley and L. V. (credited as Elvie) Thomas are two virtually unknown blueswomen who played together in the 1920’s and were recorded in 1930. There is no known photograph of Geeshie, and very little is known about her life. The only photograph of ‘Elvie’ is a Polaroid taken in a nursing home some weeks before she died. We know a little more about her, though we don’t even know her given names. Nearly everything we know about them is from the work of musicologist Robert ‘Mac’ McCormick, who tracked down and got a short interview with L. V. in the 1960s.
L. V. Thomas was born L. V. Grant on August 7, 1891, in Houston Texas and lived there her entire life. It’s likely her mother, Cora, was unmarried at the time. When L. V. was around 10 or 11, her mother married Chris King who played mandolin, banjo and guitar at saloons and country suppers. L. V. left school after the fifth grade, and was playing guitar by age 11 which she picked up from some of the neighbourhood boys. By 17 she was also playing at the country suppers – picnics held on a Saturday that would go all day and all night.
At the age of 19 – 1910 – she was in the Harris County Jail for an unknown offence. She had been working as a dishwasher, but the reasons and length of her imprisonment are unknown. The next thing we know is sometime in the late 20’s she was well and truly heavily involved with the Houston music scene. She frequently played with the somewhat famous singer Alger ‘Texas’ Alexander, who played with Blind Lemon Jefferson and was recorded from 1927 to 1939, and out-sang the star blues singer Sippie Wallace at a party of musicians. She seems to have had a very short lived marriage to a man from which she took the surname Thomas. Sometime in the early 20s she met Lillie Mae Wiley, who she called “Geetchie”.
Lillie Mae Wiley is a ghost of blues history. Almost nothing is known about her, and what is known is unreliable. She was likely born in 1908 in Louisiana, as Lillie Mae Scott, and sometime probably before 1920 joined a travelling medicine show as a musician. Here she met (and some say married) Memphis Minnie’s ex-husband Casey Bill Weldon. She ended up in Jackson, Mississippi, and mixed with some of the earliest Delta blues artists. Ishmon Bracey recalls she was from Natchez, Mississippi and she was romantic with Charlie McCoy. The bassist and singer Herbert Wily claimed Geeshie was a distant cousin (perhaps through marriage) and her family farmed in South Carolina. Geeshie married a Thornton Wiley sometime before 1930.
In the early 20s, Geeshie was in Houston, where she met L. V. Wiley. They started playing together, developed a reputation and were in some demand as a duo for hire for parties and dances. Arthur Laibly, sales and recording manager for Paramount Records, would tour the country hoping to discover new talent. He heard of the duo and knocked on Geeshie’s door in early 1930. Geeshie took him over to L. V.’s house, where he invited them to go to the studio in Grafton, Wisconsin, to make some records.
On or about March 30, 1930, Geeshie and L.V recorded at least 4 tracks – one would sing and play bass notes on the guitar, the other would play lead guitar, and on one track they both sang. Two of the tracks were released under “Geeshie Wiley” on a 78, the other under “Elvie Thomas” with the B side under “Wiley & Thomas”. Two other tracks were recorded and released on a 78 under “Geeshie Wiley and Elvie Thomas” the following year, and although L. V. recalls they only ever had one recording session, Paramount lists the recording time as March 30, 1931. L.V. recalls they spelt her name as “Elvie” on the records, and used a misspelling of her nick name for Lillie Mae – “Geeshie”. The record company chose the name of the songs – years later L.V. didn’t recognise the name “Last Kind Words” as a song of theirs, but agreed it was them when it was played to her.
In 1931, Geeshie’s husband, Thornton Wiley, was murdered. The cause of death is listed as “knife wound inflicted by Lillie Mae Scott”. It appears that that Geeshie and Thornton had earlier separated, had run into each other at a dance in Fort Bend County, and Geeshie had slammed a knife into his neck. We know the murder was reported to the police, but we don’t know what happened after that: was Geeshie arrested and cleared due to self-defence? Did she and L. V. run from the law?
The only thing we know is that 1933 was the last time L.V. saw Geeshie. After playing a gig in a town in Oklahoma, thought to be Checotah, it appears the two had a falling out and they went their separate ways. L.V. went back to Houston, and Geeshie disappeared. L.V. recalls hearing about her sometime in the 1960’s, supposedly out somewhere in West Texas.
L.V. took an active interest in the church in the Acres Homes area of Houston, and left behind the lifestyle of a blues musician. She lived in the area until she died, reportedly dressing like a man, rolling her own cigarettes, carrying a pistol and living in a house without any running water. She had been living with a woman named Sarah, identified in a census as a cousin, in the 1920’s, who married and moved on. But the marriage broke down and they were back together from at least 1940 until L. V. signed her death certificate in 1967. She cared for an nephew whose mother abandoned him for years, and who called her “Slack” – the same name Geeshie refers to her at the beginning of “Pick Poor Robin Clean”. Some members of her family believed she retreated from social life, except the church, due to her ‘lifestyle’.
L. V. died on May 20, 1979 and is buried in her church of 50 years, the Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in Acres Homes, Houston, Texas.
As for Lillie Mae Scott, known to the world as Geeshie, she remains a ghost of the blues.

NOTE: a great article on these two women of the blues can be found here

Last Kind Words has quite a unique structure for early blues songs. It uses the I, IV and V chords familiar to all blues, but the imagination and creativity used creates one of the most beautiful blues pieces ever recorded.
It’s played in E, in standard tuning (maybe down half a step) and features the use of minor chords which was quite strange for the time. The progression is Am, then an extended E section, into a repeated Bm with a natural seventh. It has two half bars of E after each Bm7.
It was played with two guitars . Geeshie Wiley singing and playing just the bass notes of the chords, and L.V. Thomas playing the melody. Because of this the bass is really pronounced, and that makes it hard to re-create the same sound on just one guitar. There are little riffs going on all over the place in the Bm7/E part, so I suggest just starting with hitting the straight chords and working out a style that suits you. This video, from the great IplayBanjoNow youtube channel has it being played in F# instead of E and using B7 – a major chord – instead of the Bm7 of the original.

The Am section comes in after a fairly loud and aggressive E/Bm7 section, so it’s important to ‘soften’ up your play to really get the minor feel of the chord to ring out. It’s the main reason why the song is beautifully eerie. The extended E section features some simple yet difficult to execute slides. Pay attention to hitting the bass on the non-slid note.
The Bm7 is hammered on in the original, but a similar sound can be made by picking the strings and immediately lifting them – a short, sharp ‘chop’.

Am                                 E
The last kind words I heard my daddy say
E                                    B7
Lord, the last kind words I heard my daddy say
E   B7       E

If I die, if I die in the German war
I want you to send my body, send it to my mother, lord

If I get killed, if I get killed, please don't bury my soul
I p'fer just leave me out, let the buzzards eat me whole

When you see me comin' look 'cross the rich man's field
If I don't bring you flour I'll bring you bolted meal

(instrumental)

I went to the depot, I looked up at the stars
Cried, some train don't come, there'll be some walkin' done

My mama told me, just before she died
Lord, precious daughter, don't you be so wild

The Mississippi river, you know it's deep and wide
I can stand right here, see my babe from the other side

What you do to me baby it never gets outta me
I may not see you after I cross the deep blue sea

The intro is a straight E chord then into the Bm7/E section.

The progression is simple enough in structure – Am, E, Bm7, E – but the execution is very difficult. Practise getting the chords down first, then add in the melody. The bass in the sliding note E sections is on the non-slid note, and can be very hard to play consistently.