Ruby Mae Hollins – Lord, I'm Still Here | The B-Side Vault

After the first Ruby Mae video — a woman named Estelle Morrison, 81, left a comment. She worked beside Ruby Mae at the laundry on 47th Street for seven years. She said Ruby Mae had a daughter she gave up in 1961. She said she hummed louder on certain days. She always knew those were the days. Music Playlist -    • The B-Side Vault — Songs That Time Forgot   Jerome's daughter heard the second recording alone at night. Sent her dad a message at 2am. Two words: "She knew." Jerome asked Estelle if she had ever heard Ruby Mae sing that specific song. She said yes. Once. During a lunch break, in 1963. Ruby Mae was sitting alone in the back corridor with a sandwich she didn't eat. She was singing quietly to herself. Estelle stopped at the door. Listened. Didn't go in. "I didn't want to interrupt something private," she said. "I could tell it wasn't for me." They asked her if she knew who it was for. She was quiet for a moment. "I always thought," she said finally, "that Ruby Mae was the kind of woman who loved people she couldn't reach. And she put all of that into the humming. All of it. Every person she couldn't get to. Every door that was closed. All of it went into the sound." Jerome's daughter heard the second recording for the first time that night, alone in her room. She sent her father a message at 2am. Two words: "She knew." When the first Ruby Mae Hollins video was published, Jerome Washington — Chester Pruitt's grandson — received a private message from a woman named Estelle Morrison. Eighty-one years old. Still living in Chicago, in the same neighbourhood where she had worked for decades. She had seen the video through her daughter, who had shared it on Facebook with the caption: "Dad, isn't this the area where you grew up?" Estelle Morrison recognised the name immediately. She had worked beside Ruby Mae Hollins at the laundry on 47th Street for seven years — from 1958 to 1965. She said Ruby Mae humming while she worked was the most constant thing in her life during that time. She said she never knew the words. Just the sound. And then she said the thing nobody knew. "Ruby Mae had a daughter. She gave her up in 1961. She never spoke about it to anyone. But she hummed louder on certain days. I always knew those were the days she was thinking about that little girl." Jerome passed the information to his daughter — the same girl who had stopped everything and asked "Dad, who is that?" She was nineteen now. She went quiet when she heard. Then she said: "So she was singing to someone." It wasn't a question. The second tape from the 1965 session — which Chester Pruitt had pressed in only twelve copies and never distributed — was transferred that week. The song is called "Lord, I'm Still Here." It was recorded the same afternoon as "Devil Don't Want Me Yet." Thirty minutes later. If the first song was about survival — this one is about waiting. About staying. About telling someone who isn't there that you're still here. That you're still real. That you didn't disappear just because they can't see you. #90smusic #80s #synthpop #lostwave #newwave #nostalgia #vintage #thebsidevault #thebside _________________________________________ This channel explores stories inspired by lost and unreleased music. Some details may be fictional, but the feeling is real. Welcome to The B-Side Vault.