"The name of the first show I joined was called The Jimmy Sampson Show. There were about thirty people altogether on the show including seven or eight people in the band. There were around eight girls in the chorus and two or three specialty dancers. Someone would come out and tell jokes and then the chorus might do a number. A featured singer would do a song. Just whoever was on the bill would do their thing.

The next show I was on was the John H. Mark outfit out of Richmond, Virginia. Doc Anderson and Evelyn Redding worked on that one. Evelyn was Doc's woman. She was in charge of the chorus girls. If one chorus girl messed up during the night's show, Evelyn didn't think anything of getting us all up in the middle of the night to rehearse it till we got it right. The band had to get up, too.

I did a little bit of everything. I worked the nail bed. I ate fire. I also did the bronze dance. That's where you go all over the body with mineral oil and you put that gold paint on. You did contortions while you were in that stuff and if you weren't careful, you'd fall flat on your rear or your belly one!I attribute learning all this to Evelyn Redding. She taught me. When Doc and Evelyn taught you something, you learned it.

Back in those days, they use to call the black shows 'jig shows'. They don't call them that anymore. The blacks could go into the black shows only. The whites could go into the black shows but the blacks couldn't go into the white shows. When the whites came into the black shows, they sat on one side and the blacks sat on the other.

We had a live band back then. They traveled everywhere with us. We got paid every week but if you needed money, you could draw on your salary. The pay was not much but you could live on it. You didn't have to worry about your food because most of the minstrel shows had their own cookhouse. When you would tear down on Saturday nite and would get to the next town, the cookhouse was already there and food was done.

I worked the Midnight Rambles, too. These were shows where you stripped. Children couldn't come into those. I also did the posing shows. We would stand behind a curtain and the curtain would open...we had to stand stark still for a few minutes until that curtain closed. You couldn't move a muscle. We were completely naked. It was against the law to move while you were doing that and the law would watch you on that stuff, too! They could close down a show if you messed up!"

Willa eventually gave up life on the road. She moved to New York City where she visited the World's Fair around 1964 and saw a snake show from Morocco. She decided, "If that man could make money with snakes, I could too," and she started collecting snakes. When she got over twenty snakes in her New York apartment, she bought a truck; bought a tent and hit the road again with her own snake show. Willa was known as Princess Ejo at times. The Wild Enchantress was another name she used. A lot of her friends called her The Black Gypsy. After her carnival days were over, Willa settled down again in Winston Salem where she drove a city bus for almost 12 years. Then she met Tim and Denise Duffy and began performing and recording again.

In 1994, she appeared at Carnegie Hall on a show called Circus Blues with her old friend, Diamond Teeth Mary; Guitar Gabriel; Blind Willie James; Tim Duffy; and Michael Parrish. Willa has two songs on a compilation cd. More are to be released soon. She appeared in a national print ad campaign for Winston not long before her death and was featured in scores of magazines including Rolling Stone, Spin, and Esquire. Willa appeared at many festivals including Bull Durham, Augusta Heritage Workshops and the Charlotte Blues Festival (June 20, 1998).

Larger Snake Lady Photo - Copyright © Music Maker Relief Foundation
Other Photos on this page - Copyright © Gaile Welker