Virginia Liston (c. 1890 – June 1932) would most likely be barely remembered today if she had not sung on a Clarence Williams Blue Five record that featured both Sidney Bechet and Louis Armstrong. The record was “Early In The Morning” and “You’ve Got The Right Key, But The Wrong Keyhole” and Virginia shows that she was a pretty good blues singer.Little is known about Liston’s early life. She reportedly was singing in vaudeville as early as 1912. In the early 1920s she was living in Washington D.C. with her husband Sam Gray and touring the T.O.B.A. vaudeville circuit with him in an act called “Liston and Liston”. The couple recorded one record together in January of 1924. They were divorced sometime around 1925. Virginia’s last recording session was in 1927 with the Clarence Williams Washboard Band, where she sang “Cushion Foot Stomp” and “P.D.Q. Blues“. Liston retired from show business in 1929 re-married and settled in St. Louis, Missouri where she reportedly died in 1932.
| Title | Recording Date | Recording Location | Company |
| Any Day The Sun Don’t Shine (Andy Razaf / Fats Waller) | 10-25-1924 | New York, New York | Okeh 8196-B |
| Bed Time Blues Piano accompaniment by Clarence Williams (Sam Gray / Virginia Liston) | 9-18-1923 | New York, New York | Okeh 8092-A |
| Bill Draw (Clarence Williams / Virginia Liston) | 10-24-1924 | New York, New York | Okeh 8173-B |
| Black Sheep Blues | 6-3-1925 | New York, New York | Okeh 8223-B |
| Don’t Agitate Me Blues (Sam Gray / Virginia Liston) | 9-15-1923 | New York, New York | Okeh 8151-B |
| Evil Minded Blues | 5-29-1926 | New York, New York | Vocalion 1031 |
| Happy Shout (Sam Gray / Will B. Overstreet) | 9-15-1923 | New York, New York | Okeh 8134-A |
| House Rent Stomp (De Coven Thompson / W.H. Hendrickson) | 9-24-1923 | New York, New York | Okeh 8134-B |
| I Ain’t Gonna Play No Second Fiddle (Perry Bradford) | 6-1-1925 | New York, New York | Okeh 8234 |
| I Ain’t Got Nobody (Nobody Cares For Me) (Abel Baer / Samuel Lewis / Joseph Young) | 6-3-1925 | New York, New York | Okeh 8223 |
| I Don’t Love Nobody (Porter Grainger / Bob Ricketts) | 1-7-1924 | New York, New York | Okeh 8138-B |
| I’m Gonna Get Me A Man That’s All (Virginia Liston) | 5-29-1926 | New York, New York | Vocalion 1032 |
| I’m Sick Of Fattening Frogs For Snakes (Perry Bradford) | 6-3-1925 | New York, New York | Okeh 8234 |
| I Never Knew What The Blues Were (Until You Went Away) (Clarence Williams) | 4-1924 | New York, New York | Okeh 8151-A |
| Jailhouse Blues (Clarence Williams / Bessie Smith) | 1-10-1924 | New York, New York | Okeh 8122 |
| Just Take One Long Last Look (Milt Hagen / Henry Welling / Charles O’Flynn) | 1-2-1924 | New York, New York | Okeh 8126-A |
| Make Me A Pallet | 6-2-1925 | New York, New York | Okeh 8247-A |
| Mississippi Blues (Lucille Hegamin / Spencer Williams) | 4-1924 | New York, New York | Okeh 8160-A |
| Monkey Jungle Blues | 10-25-1924 | New York, New York | Okeh 8247-B |
| Night Latch Key Blues (Virginia Liston) | 10-25-1924 | New York, New York | Okeh 8196-A |
| Papa De Da Da (Clarence Williams / Clarence Todd / Spencer Williams) | 6-1-1925 | New York, New York | Okeh 8218-A |
| Pineland Blues (Sidney Easton) | 10-1924 | New York, New York | Okeh 8175-B |
| Rolls Royce Papa (Virginia Liston) | 5-29-1926 | New York, New York | Vocalion 1032 |
| Sally Long Blues (Virginia Liston / Sam Gray / Clarence Williams) | 9-21-1923 | New York, New York | Okeh 8115-A |
| Sally Long Blues (Virginia Liston / Sam Gray / Clarence Williams) | 11-15-1923 | New York, New York | Okeh 8115-A |
| San Francisco Blues (Thomas “Baby” Grice) | 4-1924 | New York, New York | Okeh 8160-B |
| Shreveport Blues (Annie S. Potter) | 9-24-1923 | New York, New York | Okeh 8122-B |
| Titanic Blues | 5-29-1926 | New York, New York | Vocalion 1031 |
| ‘Tain’t A Doggone Thing But The Blues (Porter Grainger / Bob Ricketts) | 1-7-1924 | New York, New York | Okeh 8138-A |
| Weeping Willow Blues (Paul Carter) | 10-1924 | New York, New York | Okeh 8175-A |
| You Can Have It (I Don’t Want It) (A.J. Piron / Clarence Williams / May Hill) | 1-2-1924 | New York, New York | Okeh 8126-B |
| You Can Dip Your Bread In My Gravy, But You Can’t Have None Of My Chops (Fred Longshaw / Mike Jackson) | 6-2-1925 | New York, New York | Okeh 8218-B |
| You Don’t Know My Mind Blues (Virginia Liston / Sam Gray / Clarence Williams) | 9-21-1923 | New York, New York | Okeh 8115-B |
| You Don’t Know My Mind Blues (Virginia Liston / Sam Gray / Clarence Williams) | 11-15-1923 | New York, New York | Okeh 8115-B |
| You Thought I Was Blind, But Now I See Piano accompaniment by Clarence Williams (Sam Gray / Clarence Williams / Virginia Liston) | 9-18-1923 | New York, New York | Okeh 8092-B |
| Artist | Instrument |
| Sidney Bechet | Clarinet |
| Ernest Elliot | Clarinet |
| Porter Grainger | Piano |
| Sam Gray | Vocals, Piano |
| Clarence Williams | Piano |
| Sylvester Weaver? | Guitar |
Redhotjazz.com was a pioneering website during the "Information wants to be Free" era of the 1990s. In that spirit we are recovering the lost data from the now defunct site and sharing it with you.
Most of the music in the archive is in the form of MP3s hosted on Archive.org or the French servers of Jazz-on-line.com where this music is all in the public domain.
Files unavailable from those sources we host ourselves. They were made from original 78 RPM records in the hands of private collectors in the 1990s who contributed to the original redhotjazz.com. They were hosted as .ra files originally and we have converted them into the more modern MP3 format. They are of inferior quality to what is available commercially and are intended for reference purposes only. In some cases a Real Audio (.ra) file from Archive.org will download. Don't be scared! Those files will play in many music programs, but not Windows Media Player.
