Breathing in, breathing out

L.V. Thomas, ink, watercolor, 2021

The song Last Kind Words Blues by Geeshie Wiley and L.V. Thomas has been a recurring feature of many a Top 100 list, lists that I compiled annually since 1983. In the Top 100 of 1999, Last Kind Words Blues was number 1. The song has now entered the top 10 of my all time list, it accumulated 130 points since I started counting in 1983. Listening to it still gives me the chills. In 1999, when it was number one, the two performers were still totally obscure. They had recorded six songs in Wyoming in 1930, three each as leader and three as they accompanied the other. The true identities of the two women were lost in time, while the song, as time advanced, gained mythological status.  In 2014, after many years of research, the New York Times journalist Jeremiah Sullivan was able to track down the identities of the two women. He also positively identified a photograph of L.V. Thomas, the only known image of the singer/guitarist. No photograph is known to exist of Geeshie Wiley. Last Kind Words Blues is number 76 of the Top 100 2020. I have written more about this song on my blog The Top 100. You can find it here.

Namgyal Lhamo, Serge Bourguignon, oil on canvas, 2021

Number 14 form the Top 100 2021 is a Tibetan song recorded in exile in Sikkim in Northern India. The singer of the Song of Shigatse, that appears on La Voz humana en la musica, is anonymous. The well known Tibetan singer Namgyal Lhamo functions as a stand in. She's depicted on the left. The right side is a portrait of the French New Wave film director Serge Bourguignon who is the source of the recording. I'm not sure if he actually recorded the singer in Sikkim or if he simply owned the recording. The date given by Carlos Reynoso in the liner notes of La Voz humana is 1955. Reynoso (as far as I can tell from a sketchy translation of these liner notes) suggests a relationship between the French director and the well known archeologist Erica Bourguignon, who specialized in trance singing. I don't think the two were related and neither does the song evidence a trance state. What is remarkable in the song is the continuous vocalization throughout the inhaling and exhaling of breaths.