Jerry calls it "Coal Man Blues," Joe. I guess that's what Peg Leg Howell called it, too, although I don't have his recording in my own collection. Apparently both jerry Rasmussen and Dwayne Thorpe have altered the original quite a bit. Jerry says his alterations were inadvertent, Dwayne says he wrote his verses out of frustration at not having enough words to keep a neat song going for a satisfying length of time. I can understand that!

I'll start a thread about Washington Phillips after I've re-read what little I've seen about him. Basically: he was recorded in Texas during the 20s, singing religious material, playing the "dulceola" or "Dolceola," an instrument made by the Toledo Symphony Company. It was like a large zither with a keyboard built on a sort of super-structure over the lower part of the strings. Strung with chords on the left, melody strings on the right. Andy Cohen (charter member of the Washington Phillips Fan Club) plays one very well. Caroline and I have one which turned up in a Michigan antique shop, but it needs some TLC to become truly playable.

Phillips apparently died young, some say in a mental hospital, and never recorded more than the cuts put down in that 1920s session, all of which are now available on a great Yazoo CD. But let me tell you this: no one ever sang with more conviction! When he says "I was born to preach the Gospel, and I sure do love my job!" you know he means it with all his heart. Truth to tell, I'm a confirmed skeptic, but this man's music could almost bring me around.

Think that's worth a thread? I'm afraid I don't know enough about him to feel capable of getting it started properly. Perhaps someone else does.

Sandy