Black History Month: One of the Hidden Ladies of the Delta Blues Geeshie Wiley

[the_future_modernes]

No pictures of this artist exist. We do know that she was romantically attached to noted musician Papa Charlie McCoy and she may have married the former husband of Memphis Minnie, Casey Bill Weldon. Nobody is sure when she was born, where she worked, when she died, not even her real name, since as Wiki notes

the nickname "Geechie" or "Geechee" was most commonly given to people from around coastal South Carolina and Georgia, and is an alternate name for the Gullah ethnic group of that region.

Women performers in Delta Blues were apparently rarely recorded. Ms. Geeshie Wiley left us three records with a total of 6 songs, made in the 1930's, and we raise our glasses to her talented guitary blues.


Geeshie Wiley - Last Kind Words

“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's liner notes to Mississippi Masters: Early American Blues Classics 1927-35 (Yazoo CD 2007, 1994)

Skinny Leg Blues ........Geechie Wiley

pick poor robin clean - geeshie wiley