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sessions in sight, he continued working at The Blue Lantern, moving more towards
religious music, especially in radio appearances and with the Metropolitan Atlanta

Association for the Blind. He also continued helping other blind musicians, and
visiting the blind school in North Carolina.

By the mid-1950s his health was in decline, as a result of excessive drinking, diabetes,

and being overweight - as a result, his blood pressure was too high.

Willie had got to know Ed Rhodes, who owned a record shop near The Blue Lantern,

and he persuaded Willie to play, and be recorded, at his shop, in the Autumn of 1956.
It was an extremely laid-back session, no doubt in no small measure due to the flow
of alcohol! Willie played the full gamut of his music, as people wandered in and out
of the shop, and ‘The Last Session’ is the result of that event. In fact, its release was

almost accidental - Three or four years later Rhodes sold the recording equipment,
and the tapes were thrown in a trash barrel in the attic. One day he remembered the
McTell session, and decided to try to find the tape. After sorting through the piles of

rubbish, at the bottom he found just one that was in a playable condition - the Blind
Willie McTell last session. Having read the 1959 Sam Charters book ‘The Country
Blues’, Rhodes contacted Charters to see if the tape would be of interest to him.

By this time, Willie was dead. After suffering 2 debilitating strokes in the Summer
of 1959, he died of a cerebral haemorrhage, and was buried at Jones Grove Baptist
Church, near Thomson, Georgia.

Unfortunately he did not live long enough to be ‘rediscovered’ in the 1960s folk
revival, where doubtless he would have been highly acclaimed. However, the reissues
of his music since then have elevated him alongside Leadbelly and Jesse Fuller, one

of the most influential of 12 string folk and blues guitar players to this day.

In memory of Willie, a blues club in Atlanta, named after him, has flourished, and
the town of Thomson holds the Blind Willie McTell blues festival every year.

Try to get hold of a copy of ‘Last Session’, and you will see why Blind Willie McTell is
held in such high acclaim.