These tunes were played on what appears to be a double zither, not homemade, not box-shaped, but tuned to F, from its natural C position to accommodate Mr. The truth is, the man whose recordings have an unprecedented ability to calm frayed nerves was born in 1880, and he lived 74 years before falling down a set of stairs in Teague, Texas, near his home town of Simsboro.Īnd he did not play a doceola. However, it's well known that many musicians of this era had their careers killed by the depression, which hit the recording industry hard by the end of the 20s, rendering further recordings by marginal sellers moot. Because the artist in question made no more records after 1929, that this man was the musician who recorded such peons to gorgeousness as “Take Your Burden to the Lord,” or “What Are They Doing in Heaven Today?” seemed plausible. One of them, born in 1891, was committed to a Texas mental hospital in 1930, where he died 8 years later. His granddaddy Washington was a slave, and both of that man's sons named children after him. And for a long time, Phillips' story, as well as how his music was made had just that. 'Take Your Burden to the Lord And Leave It There' Steeped in gospel's oral tradition, but floating on his own instrumental innovations, Phillips created some early genre-defying folk minimalism, sounds that have no doubt influenced such unhurried performers as Michael Hurley, Liz Harris, or Marissa Anderson. The ghostly twinkles of Phillips' double zither- the manzarene-, caressing a voice seemingly devoid of hurry, carried by the clouds, have only grown more unusual, seductive, and softly brazen with time. It remains singular, easily separated from the multitudes of blues and gospel records recorded in the rural, black, early 20th Century deep south. The music in this collection, which has been reissued half a dozen times since its original appearance on as many 10 inch slabs of shellac in the late 1920s, hasn't lost any of its ability to bring listeners to silence. Washington Phillips And His Manzarene DreamsĬD in 76-page hardcover book with notes by Michael Corcoran