Does anyone know where Major Wiley is?

Subject: Does anyone know where Major Wiley is?
From: Philly Folk Addict
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 03:55 PM

Years ago we liked a folk-singer named Major Wiley. He played clubs in the Village and did some acting/TV too. He was at Gerdes Folk City a lot in the late 1960's and 70's and then he disappeared. He played there when Dominic Chianese was M.C.(he went on to the Sopranos HBO series).

Subject: RE: Does anyone know where Major Wiley is?
From: Stefan Wirz
Date: 30 Oct 08 - 09:35 AM

good question - here's one who also would like to know ...

in the meantime listen to some sound clips on my MW discography at http://www.wirz.de/music/wiley_m.htm

Subject: RE: Does anyone know where Major Wiley is?
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Aug 10 - 07:12 PM

London

Subject: RE: Does anyone know where Major Wiley is?
From: Matthew Edwards
Date: 07 Aug 10 - 07:29 PM

Well it is good to know Major Wiley is still around although some more specific information would be good.

He wrote the lyrics to a song Right, Wrong or Ready which Karen Dalton recorded, but I'd like to know a lot more about his story.

Matthew

Subject: RE: Does anyone know where Major Wiley is?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 08 Aug 10 - 12:06 AM

Jeez, it's been 50 years since I thought of him. He was gigging around Chicago in the early 1960s I think it was. I liked him and his style a lot.

His version of "Dink's Song" was pretty special as I recall.

Good memories!
Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Does anyone know where Major Wiley is?
From: GUEST,Andrea
Date: 12 Sep 10 - 10:56 PM

I knew him in Greenwich Village in the mid 60s ... would love to know where he is now ...

Subject: RE: Does anyone know where Major Wiley is?
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 13 Sep 10 - 06:41 PM

he was a regular at Streatham ( London)in the early 70's When we had Sonny Terry and brownie mcGhee at Phillippa Fawcett College, he came along and persuaded us to let him open the show for two bottles of lager...sang proud mary, also 'offered' for a fee to open a folk concert we were running later in the year featuring a number of local acts....Tight like That, Puffing Billy, Brixton Bert.

Subject: RE: Does anyone know where Major Wiley is?
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 14 Sep 10 - 04:19 AM

There's a similar thread here which asks the same question, though no answers I'm afraid -

Lyr Req: Right, Wrong or Ready (Major Wiley)

http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=32118#2973735

CLONES: Any hope of linking these two with a "Related threads" clickie at the top?

Subject: RE: Does anyone know where Major Wiley is?
From: GUEST,mb
Date: 21 May 11 - 05:16 PM

He used to sing at "Fiction"(long gone) in Northcote Road, Battersea in the nineties. Wizz Jones ran a session there on Mondays

Subject: RE: Does anyone know where Major Wiley is?
From: GUEST,fiddlemage
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 10:00 PM

I met him in the Midwest on the folk circuit, knew him in New York in middle 60s. Good guy, and I liked his music. I wish him well.

Subject: RE: Does anyone know where Major Wiley is?
From: Lynn Gold
Date: 30 Jun 11 - 12:01 AM

major wiley was a friend years ago when were both singing at Gerde's Folk City...sensitive, gifted, he could belt out blues with Brownie and Sonny, then sing an ancient Irish ballad as traditionally as someone born to the sod...beautifully...he was kind and generous with a keen intelligence...hope someone can track him down...

Subject: RE: Does anyone know where Major Wiley is?
From: GUEST,Stephen in Joburg
Date: 25 Jul 11 - 10:58 AM

Hello. Major was married to my sister for whom he wrote Black Eyed Susan. He has two grown up children who are talented and socially aware. Major still lives in London, and I hear occassionally plays and sings for friends and when pushed commercially. But you are right. He had a most wonderful voice, that could be both tender (heartbreakingly so), and also as powerful as an old steam engine! I also loved his guitar work (he kindly showed me a couple of great tricks!) and especially his very special finger strumming style. I wonder if others remember it? I haven't seen him since emigrating years ago, but I bet he can still sing a mean song.

Subject: RE: Does anyone know where Major Wiley is?
From: GUEST,Ali in Sydney
Date: 28 Jul 11 - 09:22 AM

I knew Major in London in the early 80's. He was a friend of actor Tim Morand. Lovely person and someone I have thought about lots since I left england. The last thing we talked about was the fact that I run away from everything. Which of course I did!
I tried to find him when I went back to England in 1993 but failed. If anyone can put me in touch I would be very grateful!

Subject: RE: Does anyone know where Major Wiley is?
From: GUEST,Douglas Nicholas
Date: 21 Sep 11 - 12:14 PM

I was a big fan in the early to mid-1960s in Greenwich Village, NYC. Fred Neil, Hoyt Axton, Major Wiley, all passing the basket. Below is a poem I wrote about Major, and about memory.

The Singer Major Wiley

Along the sidewalks of West Third Street, over the irregular plates and ridges of dark gray ice clamped to the frozen concrete, a wind cold to the point of pain blew hissing veils of granular snow to tick against the glass in the door, to pile in the corners of the storefront window of the Café Elysée, candle-haunted, cinnamon-scented, chiming with the click and clink of china in the shadows; it is dead now these twenty years

There I would hear the singer Major Wiley, trim and broad-shouldered, with the moderate stature, the moon face of West African ancestors; he sang the old traditional songs in a rough pale tenor. He carried a big steel-strung Chicago-made guitar, and he played it in a style at once robust and untutored. To everything he sang he brought an urgent intensity: songs of love, songs about badmen, the sour laments of slavery days. A basket was passed for coins; that café was too poor to pay its singers

Late in the evening, as the snow built up on the windows, as the wicks sailed away on luminous clear lakes of wax, he grew tired; the songs grew more quiet and more somber. If I had wings, he said, like Noah's dove, and he said, I would fly up this river to the one I love, and he played a little decorative curl of notes round the end of the line, a little filigree of sound, and all the time the snow tapping: Let me in. Ah, you all know that old song, where the melody descends in the third line like a three-tiered waterfall, to plunge beneath a minor chord and there his voice like a pike in a black mountain pool moved through bitter regret, hopeless longing

I see him, I see him still before my eye, young and confident, sturdy as a post, centered in the splash of light, quick-fingered, thick-throated, singing with a voice like silvered gravel

Tell me, who among you, given those wings, would not fly back to the ones you love, though you left them oh so far upstream?

Subject: RE: Does anyone know where Major Wiley is?
From: GUEST,Douglas Nicholas
Date: 21 Sep 11 - 12:18 PM

Well, the previous post lost the line breaks; this one I think will retain the correct breaks, but the hyphens are weird.


The Singer Major Wiley

Along the sidewalks of West Third Street,
over the irregular plates and ridges of dark gray ice
clamped to the frozen concrete, a wind cold to the point of pain
blew hissing veils of granular snow
to tick against the glass in the door,
to pile in the corners of the storefront window
of the Café Elysée, candle﷓-haunted, cinnamon﷓-scented, chiming
with the click and clink of china in the shadows;
it is dead now these twenty years

There I would hear the singer Major Wiley,
trim and broad﷓-shouldered, with the moderate stature,
the moon face of West African ancestors; he sang
the old traditional songs in a rough pale tenor.
He carried a big steel﷓-strung Chicago-﷓made guitar,
and he played it in a style
at once robust and untutored. To everything he sang
he brought an urgent intensity:
songs of love, songs about badmen, the sour laments
of slavery days. A basket was passed for coins; that café
was too poor to pay its singers

Late in the evening, as the snow built up on the windows,
as the wicks sailed away on luminous clear lakes of wax,
he grew tired; the songs grew more quiet and more somber.
If I had wings, he said, like Noah's dove,
and he said, I would fly up this river
to the one I love, and he played a little
decorative curl of notes round the end of the line,
a little filigree of sound, and all the time
the snow tapping: Let me in. Ah, you all know
that old song, where the melody
descends in the third line like a three-﷓tiered waterfall,
to plunge beneath a minor chord and there
his voice like a pike in a black mountain pool
moved through bitter regret, hopeless longing

I see him, I see him still before my eye,
young and confident, sturdy as a post,
centered in the splash of light, quick﷓-fingered,
thick﷓-throated, singing with a voice
like silvered gravel

Tell me, who among you, given those wings,
would not fly back to the ones you love, though you left them
oh so far upstream?

Subject: RE: Does anyone know where Major Wiley is?
From: GUEST,Dave Sugarbeet
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 06:44 AM

Courtesy of my good friend Mr Patrick Carroll (a lifelong friend of Major):

    "Major Wiley: International Bluesman of Mystery. In fact, Major lives - as he has done for 30-odd years - in the Shepherds Bush area of West London. (I crashed in his flat earlier this month.) Over that time he has continued to sing, play, write and perform. He has also worked as an actor in films, on stage with the Royal National Theatre, and on television. He has also given occasional guitar tutorials. His later recordings have generally been restricted to demos and promotional discs of his own material. An important recent exception is his appearance as vocalist on the CD "Meet The Beet" (MTBCD02) as a guest member of Dave Sugarbeet's Last Gasp Blues Band fronted by the cult virtuoso blues violinist Dave Sugarbeet. Major's contributions include his own song "I Was Sick But Now I'm Ill"; renditions of Robert Johnson's "When You've Got A Good Friend" and Dino Valente's "Let's Get Together"; and a duet with singer/guitarist Steve Mole on "Corinna Corinna".
      Those interested in knowing a little more about Major's background are directed to the website http://www.patrickcarroll.co.uk particularly to chapter 3 (Dropout) and chapter 6 (South With the Italians) of the Memoir category. The concluding two chapters of this section of Notes of a Footnote will also feature Major prominently.
      Further, should interested parties happen to be in West Cornwall (U.K. not upstate New York) toward the end of February next year) Major is scheduled to make some appearances".

Subject: RE: Does anyone know where Major Wiley is?
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Mar 12 - 01:12 PM

Major taught me to play the blues, I love him like a brother. There
needs to be a reunion, too bad Jimmy left us (died). Connect Major, I miss you. Gene

Subject: RE: Does anyone know where Major Wiley is?
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Jun 12 - 06:17 PM

Hey, Major.
think of you sometimes and remember fun we shared. Still have my record.
Love to hear that you're ok.
As you used to say, I'm still here, if you're still there!

love,
Ba xx

Subject: RE: Does anyone know where Major Wiley is?
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Jul 12 - 05:32 PM

I'm currently sat in a pub in St. ives listening to Major giving a live gig.
He is very good, and seems like a really nice guy.

Subject: RE: Does anyone know where Major Wiley is?
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Oct 12 - 06:39 AM

It's a Major Wiley love fest.........Beautiful man. Just plain beautiful inside and out.

I've been looking for him ever since I made the mistake of moving to NY back at the end of the 70s. We used to sing together back in Trent Park days. Lost contact around '79-'80. Back then I was Helena Lachter. Now and again, I get back to England to see my mum. She's 93. She used to love Major. I was there a few weeks ago. Would love to hook up with him when I'm next over or when he's stateside.
I see there's a new youtube - he looks and sounds as wonderful as ever. So good to see.
I need to reach him. How do I do this?

I miss him. He was a great friend. Enough years have passed.

Helena
[e-mail]

Subject: RE: Does anyone know where Major Wiley is?
From: GUEST,Guest - Jim Younger
Date: 07 Oct 12 - 09:17 PM

I remember Major Wiley - a great singer, player, and performer. I would love to see him at a gig some time soon.