Last Kind Words by Rhiannon Giddens

From the album Tomorrow Is My Turn

The landscape of American music is littered with the ghosts of the unknowable and mysterious blues musician, scratchy voices on a 78 conjuring up an era and an energy long gone. No one represents this better, perhaps, than Geeshie Wiley, who, along with equally unknown L.V. Thomas, recorded a handful of sides for Paramount Records in 1930–31. “Last Kind Word Blues” calls to me in a way that I can’t really explain, but when producer T Bone Burnett suggested it for the record, I knew instantly it was the way to begin.