Willa Mae Buckner Obituary
Living Blues Magazine
Number #150, vol 31, number 2, (Apr/May 2000)
Pages 116-117
Written by Gaile Welker
Magazine cover art and
photography Copyright © 2000 by Living Blues
(Photos of Willa on this web page were not included in article.)

Willa Mae Buckner, aka "The Snake Lady," died of kidney failure on January 8, 2000, in Winston Salem, North Carolina. She was 77.

Buckner was born in Augusta, Georgia, on June 15, 1922. Her early childhood activities included riding in her pony cart, attending fish fries, listening to her mother play the organ, and dancing to records played on the family gramaphone. Her life changed drastically when her mother died. After her father remarried, Buckner said, she "didn't feel like I was being treated right so I ran away. I left to go to the grocery store and it took me four years to get back."

Buckner rode a bus to Winston Salem to stay with an uncle. Shortly thereafter, the Jimmy Simpson Minstrel Show came to town. When the show pulled up stakes, the teenaged Buckner left with it. "My daddy didn't know where I was," she said in an interview with Lookin' For The Blues. "I changed my name to Willie Mae Brown, ran up my age, and got a Social Security card. That was the beginning of my show business career. I didn't stay with that first show too long. The next show I was on was the John H. Mark outfit out of Richmond Virginia... The other people on the shows took me under their wings. I started as a dancer, but I learned to do everything. I sang blues songs, danced in the chorus line, worked the blade box, the four-legged woman act, contortionist, fire-eater, worked the nail bed, and worked with comedy teams. Whatever needed to be done, we did it. One act involved covering your body with mineral oil and putting gold paint all over you. You had to be careful in that stuff because you'd fall flat on your rear or your belly one while you were doing chin stands, head stands, back bends, and things like that.

"We did those shows on Friday and Saturday nights called the Midnight Ramble. We sang good old blues and nasty, dirty songs on those. That's when we use to switch it up and take it off. Those 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 completel naked. It was against the law to move while you were in that stuff, too! I didn't see that I was doing anyting wrong. For what you see on TV today, we weren't doing anything wrong. We were paving the way."

Buckner moved to New York City in the 40s and settled down for awhile, working a variety of jobs while pursuing her show business dreams. In addition to learning to play a number of instruments and singing in small clubs and neighborhood theaters, she took lessons in belly-dancing, worked as a backup singing on some recording sessions, sang with the Ethel Lemon Gospel Group, visited Cuba with musician friends, and occasionally sang gospel on the streets of Harlem. One of her good friends in New York was singer/actress Mabel King, with whom she enjoyed regular card parties that sometimes lasted until dawn.

A visit to the 1964 World's Fair gave Buckner an idea for a new career. She saw a snake show and decided, "If that man can make money with snakes, I could too... I always had a thing for snakes. It started when my brothers use to chase me with 'em. One day I pick one up and started chasing them." After accumulating more than 20 snakes in her New York apartment, she brought a truck and a tent and hit the road with her own snake show. Appearing at various times as Princess Ejo, the Wild Enchantress, and the Black Gypsy, she traveled the East Coast on such shows as the James Strate Shows and the Buck Page show, counting among her friends Tattoo Joe and Lobster Boy.

Buckner spent years on the road but decided to settle down once again after her truck broke down in Burlington, North Carolina. From September 1973 until her retirement in 1985, she worked as a bus driver for the city of Winston Salem. She still played music, however, performing in local drink houses along with her friend and neighbor, Guitar Gabriel. It was at a drink house that she met Tim Duffy in the early 90s; soon Buckner became an integral part of the Music Maker Relief Foundation, a nonprofit organization run by Duffy and his wife Denise. She recorded for Music Maker and began appearing at a variety of festivals and concerts, including the 1994 show 'Circus Blues' at Carnegie Hall.

Over the years, numerous writers, filmmakers, and students showed up at Buckner's door. Craig Shores and Bobby White produced The Willa Mae Story, which aired on North Carolina Public Television. A video documentary called Snake Lady/Black Gypsy was made by Lookin' For The Blues; the audio documentary The Last Side Show was produced by Helen Borden. Buckner was featured in Living Blues 108 and many other publications, and recently appeared in a major print ad campaign for Winston cigarettes and in public service announcements for Music Maker on MTV and VH1.

Many knew Buckner as a lady who sang risque songs, a woman who could party with the best of them, and someone who would tell somebody to mind their own business in one second flat. "Now, if you have any questions about your own life, search yourself and do your own thing," she once told me. "Everybody has their own way of doing things. I have mine and I stick to my guns." But Buckner was also kind and generous, going out of her way to buy toys for a fatherless child or bring magazines to nursing homes. Never married (she lived with her beloved companion, Leon Rivers), Buckner had no children of her own, so her children were the children of her friends. Her other 'babies' were her Burmese pythons, Siam and Pepe. Allowed free run of her house, they kept away the faint of heart.

Services for Buckner were held on January 13 at the Johnson-Howard Robinson Home of Memory Chapel in Winston Salem; she is buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Winston Salem, also the final resting place of her friend, Guitar Gabriel.