As you may know, I have a special fondness for Geeshie Wiley. She was the young and apparently volatile blues singer who traveled around the south with Elvie Thomas. They are both legends — in both senses of the word. I wrote about them in some depth last year, Elvie Thomas and Geeshie Wiley. They must have been quite the pair. Thomas was a lesbian of about 40 and Wiley was 20 years younger and murdered her husband. It is thought that it was in self-defense, because Wiley did not go to jail for it. But you can imagine the great movie Russ Meyer could have made out of the bare facts.
Geeshie Wiley’s best known tune is Last Kind Words. Of course, there is no actual video of her performing. In fact, we only have a single picture of Elvie Thomas as quite an old woman, which you can see in the article mentioned above. But I’ve heard countless other performers do the song. And recently, I came upon a guitarist named Christine Pizzuti, out of Germantown, New York. I’m always amazed at the incredible talent you find everywhere. And her version of the song is really compelling. She doesn’t know all of the lyrics, but that’s understandable. Check out Wiley’s Skinny Leg Blues — a song no one can seem to agree about the lyrics.
Anyway, I just love Pizzuti’s playing. And she manages Wiley’s voice pretty well too!
Can i ask you a question if you’ll ever see this, why did you stop uploading music to your YouTube channel? And is there another website or something? I really enjoy your playing.
Actually, as I discussed a bit this morning, I’m hoping to start doing some more. The problem is that I’m a writer and so once something is written, I’m not that interested. Also, I’m ridiculously busy. But I would like to do a bit more stuff.
I got sad. I haven’t played in a few years, but I picked up the guitar over the weekend. Gonna stick with it.
Dear Christine, if you read this, don’t let sadness change you. Hope you can find peace again. And your voice and guitars sing life once more.
Take good care of yourself,
Alex
Christine,
Really glad to hear it…..Have actually downloaded several of your covers to my iPod! I, too, got sad a while back… No easy answer, but learning difficult songs sometimes helps me.
Lowell
Well, it is the blues. And with all respect to Geeshie Wiley (which is enormous), Christine’s playing is actually better. I hope she doesn’t stop playing. In addition to her playing, her voice is beautiful and evocative.