Shirley Griffith: An Esoteric Blues

I was visiting Chicago last summer with the intention of finding an apartment. I stopped into a bookstore of ill repute and was just looking around – I wound up snaggin The Picture of Dorian Gray simply by virtue of my not having read it previously as opposed to possessing some innate inclination to getting through it. Anyway, at the time, I knew two people in the entire, sprawling town. Somehow, though, I ran into a girlfriend from high school who still lived in another state. She was there on business.

The chance of that meeting was probably pretty slim – I’m bad at math, so I won’t attempt any construction of an equation for it all. But the random happenstance stuff that we all just find odd, over time, has really defined each of us as individuals. Without those chance happenings, I know that my entire life would be different today.

For Shirley Griffith, the odd occurrences didn’t wind up being too auspicious, unfortunately.

Born in Brandon, Mississippi, Griffith would spend his formative years busking around the south during the earliest days of the country blues thing. The guitarist and songwriter didn’t have a chance to record, although opportunism presented themselves.

There’s scant information on Griffith’s life, so the majority of the info gleaned for all of this comes mainly from a post that collects a few paragraphs from another site on the bluesman. But according to that stuff, Griffith, while working alongside Tommy Johnson, missed an initial chance to set songs to tape. By the guitarist’s own admission, he was just too out of control. And even after working with such a distinguished and important player, Griffith was set to record with Scrapper Blackwell and Leroy Carr in ‘35 – the death of the latter player precluded the occurrence.

Being born in 1908 set Griffith in a position to get some sides off during the early days of the recording industry. Despite his inability to record, though, Griffith apparently maintained his chops after moving to Indianapolis and working a normal day job. With the onslaught of rediscovered players during the ‘60s, the guitarist received a bit of notoriety. He even played at the Ann Arbor Blues Festival in 1969, the fest’s first year.

With at least some momentum behind him, Griffith was able to cut three albums at the very end of his life. And I’d honestly, never seen any of them until recently. His last effort, Mississippi Blues, was released by Blue Goose Records in ’73.

Art Rosenbaum, a local who took an interest in recording the guitarist, had his hand in each of the sessions – and contributed photography. But from listening to just Griffith’s final album, it’s almost shocking that after such a long time away from any semblance of a career in music his voice sounds as bold as it must have in earlier decades. His guitar playing isn’t perfect, but a far sight better than a handful of Griffith’s compatriots that were dug up again in the ‘60s.

None of this might matter, though, seeing as finding Mississippi Blues or Griffith’s earlier discs isn’t too likely. Good luck digging.