I'm Tired of You Satan

While idly browsing the old interweb the other day, I happened to notice that the splendidly named record label, Iron Mountain Analogue Research Facility, recently issued Volume 3 of their 'Hillbillies in Hell' compilation series. This was a surprise to me, as until that very moment I was unaware that there'd even been a Volume 2. I shall be chasing down these omissions from my collection forthwith, but in the meantime can heartily recommend Volume 1's tales of drug abuse, suicide and all manner of additional dark subject matters, performed by largely under-the-radar artists in a loosely Country / Rockabilly style. The fuzzy Gospel of 'I'm Tired of You, Satan', by the otherwise anonymous Wayne, Pat & Keith, is one of the album's jauntier moments.

Wayne, Pat & Keith - I'm Tired of You, Satan

Denomination Blues

Between 1927 and 1929 Washington Phillips recorded the mere 18 songs that comprise his entire body of work - six of those were the first and second parts of three long songs, four were unreleased at the time and two are lost altogether. 'Denomination Blues' originally stretched to over five minutes in length, so was divided into two separate recordings issued across either side of a 78rpm single in 1928 and is, amongst other things, a plea for tolerance and respect across religious divides. 'Well denominations have no right to fight, they ought to just treat each other right, that's all.' Nearly 90 years on, the more things change the more they stay the same.

I first heard 'Denomination Blues' in the late 1980's, via Andy Kershaw's Radio 1 show, though it took me a few years to track down 'I Am Born to Preach the Gospel', a compilation of Phillips' recordings, released on the Yazoo label. A more recent Yazoo collection, 'The Key To The Kingdom', is the one to go for these days.

'Denomination Blues Part 1' - Washington Phillips 

'Denomination Blues Part 2' - Washington Phillips 

The song has been covered many times over the years, most notably in 1972 by Ry Cooder on 'Into the Purple Valley'. Sister Rosetta Tharpe used significant elements of 'Denomination Blues' in the two versions of 'That's All' she cut in 1938 and 1941. Here's a fantastic live performance of it from the 1940's.