The Songs of Washington Phillips

Depending on the site you consult, you'll read

• Washington Phillips was a pioneering gospel performer in the 1920s. Born in Texas in 1880, his entire musical catalogue consists of eighteen remarkable songs, some of which amount to highly specific and detailed gospel sermons. (The Wikipedia)
• Washington Phillips is one of the most intriguing and delightful figures in American music history. His style is completely unique, both in his warm, plaintive singing and his use of zither for accompaniment. Yazoo Records
• East Texan Washington Phillips was one of the founding fathers of American gospel music. Although he recorded only eighteen tunes (sixteen of which have survived) in five sessions in Dallas between 1927 and 1929, Phillips helped to lay the foundation that resulted in such spiritually- oriented performers as Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the Dixie Hummingbirds and the Five Blind Boys of Alabama. Answers.com

Much if not all of the mystique surrounding Washington Phillips involves whether the instrument played on his recordings was the dolceola, a rare keyboard instrument, or simply a more common zither. See, for example, the articles by Gregg Miner and Kelly Williams and Michael Corcorran

I stumbled across the music of Washington Phillips while visiting Juneberry78s.com. The sound of the dolceola, zither, or whatever-it-was is interesting, but the controversey surrounding the dolceola seemed to me to be nothing more than a distraction from the power of his songs! I ran a few searches for his lyrics but came up dry, so I decided to transcribe them myself and post them so that others might have to them, too.

These are transcriptions of the songs the way I hear them. Corrections are weclomed. There are a few phrases that puzzle me. They are contained in square brackets.