The Last Kind Word Blues

This past Monday I was hanging out at my sister's place, and being a sweetheart, she very kindly downloaded a couple of songs for me. I've been listening to them every chance I've had since then. Both songs are by an artist named Geeshie Wiley, and I have to tell you, Geeshie and I have a history.

It all started way back when I used to listened to Stuart McLean's Vinyl Cafe on CBC radio every Saturday morning. If you're familiar with the Vinyl Cafe, you know that every week Stuart reads one of his stories aloud, usually about Dave and Morley. You can count on these stories to be hilarious, or bitter-sweet, or both, and no matter who you are, you can very easily imagine yourself in the shoes of one of the characters. They are the kind of stories that, should you start listening while you are in the middle of something, you can bet that the something won't get finished until after the story is over. One story in particular caught my imagination.

I was, at the time, a budding blues fan, and my sister (the sweetheart) had recently given me a copy of the book Blues for Dummies.

On this particular weekend Stuart read a story called The Last Kind Word Blues. It had all of the archetypal elements you need for a good blues story. It involved an extraordinarily rare 78 rpm disc, recorded sometime around 1930, by an artist whom history remembered almost nothing about. Dave, our hero, first heard the song in his youth, and was haunted by it. Decades later the rare 78 appeared unexpectedly in his record store, only to disappear again, driving Dave absolutely bonkers.

Now as much as we'd all like to believe that Dave from the stories is a real person, and that somewhere in Canada there really is a little second-hand record store called the Vinyl Cafe, I know these stories are fictitious. When I heard the story about this 78 containing a song called The Last Kind Word Blues, by an artist with the unlikely name of Geechie Wiley (Stuart's spelling) I took it for granted that it was fictitious too. That said, the idea of the song struck me. Stuart's description was so captivating that I found myself trying to imagine what the song would actually sound like.

"The opening chords of the song filled his head for the first time in twenty-three years. When the song ended Dave lifted the tone arm and set it down at the beginning. And then again.
The rhythms of Geechie Wiley's voice uncorked the bottle of time. Dave was hit by the same wave of emotion that had washed over him on that night in Alabama so long ago. Only this time he recognized the wave. This time he was old enough to give it a name. It was the wave of loneliness.
Once again the record had messed him up."

Stuart was, to my mind, describing the archetype of a blues song. But why hadn't he asked any of the multitude of musicians he knew to write the song? Why had we never heard some one's musical interpretation of that description on Stuart's show? Was it because it was unattainable? Damn but I wanted to hear that song.

A year or two later I was up late one night poking around on-line, and on a whim I did a search. I can't remember if I googled the song title, or Geechie Wiley, but up popped a page some blues fan had put together.

It had a short Bio of all that is known of the life of Geeshie (or Geechie) Wiley.

It had a list of the four known songs she recorded, as well as two more she is believed to have accompanied on.

And it had a sound file.

"The Last Kind Word Blues"

My hair stood on end.

What I had mistaken for a myth, was, in fact, a legend.

And the song messed me up.

This website has the song set up to play automaticaly, give it a listen:
http://cockeyedabsurdist.vox.com/library/audio/6a00cd970622754cd500cdf7eff3b8094f.html

And you can read the full story The Last Kind Word Blues in Stuart McLean's book Vinyl Cafe Unplugged, ISBN 0140299149, published by Penguin Books.

Thanks, my dear sister, for the blues.