In My Time of Dyin'

Lyrics
Song History / Major Recordings
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In My Time of Dyin'

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Song History / Major Recordings

"Jesus Make Up My Dyin' Bed" by Blind Willie Johnson
(recorded in 1927)

Extract from the All Music biography by Joslyn Layne

Seminal gospel-blues artist Blind Willie Johnson is regarded as one
of the greatest bottleneck slide guitarists. Yet the Texas street-corner
evangelist is known as much for the his powerful and fervent gruff
voice as he is for his ability as a guitarist. He most often sang in a
rough, bass voice (only occasionally delivering in his natural tenor)
with a volume meant to be heard over the sounds of the streets.
Johnson recorded a total of 30 songs during a three-year period and
many of these became classics of the gospel-blues, including "Jesus
Make up My Dying Bed"........

On December 3, 1927, Columbia Records brought Blind Willie
Johnson into the studio where he recorded six songs that became
some of his most enduring recordings: a song about Samson and
Delilah called "If I Had My Way," "Mother's Children Have a Hard
Time" (often understood as "motherless children"), "It's Nobody's
Fault but Mine," "Jesus Make up My Dying Bed," " I Know His
Blood Can Make Me Whole," and Johnson's single most-acclaimed
song, "Dark Was the Night — Cold Was the Ground," which is about
the crucifixion of Christ.

see full biography here



"The Complete Blind Willie Johnson"
(2 discs - 40 tracks including "Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed"

Available from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

"Jesue Is A Dying-Bed Maker" by Charley Patton (1929)



Charley Patton Biography (All Music Guide)

If the Delta country blues has a convenient source point, it would
probably be Charley Patton, its first great star. His hoarse,
impassioned singing style, fluid guitar playing, and unrelenting
beat made him the original king of the Delta blues. Much more
than your average itinerant musician, Patton was an acknowledged
celebrity and a seminal influence on musicians throughout the
Delta....more



Listen to this sample clip (RealAudio)

"In My Time of Dying" by Josh White
(recorded in 1933)

Extracts from the Josh White biography @
http://www.joshwhitejr.com/biojwsr.html

JOSH WHITE (1915 - 1969) was the artist most responsible for
introducing black folk, blues and spiritual music to white America
and the rest of the world.

.....From the ages 7 - 16, young Joshua's career was spent
malnourished, dressed in rags and shoeless, sleeping in fields hiding
from the Ku Klux Klan, while witnessing lynching and a black man
burned at the stake, as he led (walked) 66 different old, blind, black
street singers across America (among them, Blind Lemon Jefferson,
Blind Blake, Blind Joe Taggert)---where during the 'day' he would
dance, sing, play the tambourine and collect the coins for the old
men, and where 'at night', while hiding in the field, he would practice
the guitar, and develop his own unique guitar stylings and vast song
repertoire and eventually, while still as a child, would begin recording
landmark vocal/guitar duets with Joe Taggert in Chicago (1928)....and
a solo record career in New York (1932).
read full biography here



Lyrics as recorded by "Joshua White, The Singing Christian"
(JOSH WHITE, vocal/guitar), New York, NY, Aug 15, 1933 -
transcribed by Manfred Helfert.



Josh White - Free & Equal Blues
(Smithsonian Folkways Audio CD)
26 tracks including "In My Time of Dying"
available from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

Listen to sample clip : Windows Media   RealAudio



Great Bluesmen in Britain (Avid)
Various Artists - 32 tracks including
Josh White - He's A Dyin' Bed Maker
(Jesus Gonna Make Up My Dying Bed)

Josh White (02/11/1914 - 09/05/1969) Discography

"Toll the Bell Easy" by The Golden Gate Quartet



from the album "Golden Gate Quartet, Vol. 4: 1939-1943"
available from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

Listen to sample clip (Windows Media)

"Jesus Goin' Make Up My Dyin' Bed" by Dock Reed



The John and Ruby Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip

Nearly 25 hours of recordings featuring 300 performers that
John and Ruby Lomax recorded during their three-month trip
through the southern United States in 1939

including:
Jesus Goin' Make Up My Dyin' Bed
(Dock Reed, Vera Hall & Jesse Allison, Livingston AL, 1939)

Listen (RealAudio)   Lyrics

"Well, Well, Well" by The Soul Stirrers (c. 1950)



included on the compilation CD "All of My Appointed Time"
Kings of Harmony/Soul Stirrers (various artists)

All I want you to do for me
Is to give that bell a tone
Well, well, well, just tone it easy
Well, well, well, just tone it easy
Well, well, well, just tone it easy
Jesus gonna make up my dyin' bed

Listen to audio clip - Windows Media  Real

"In My Time of Dyin' by Bob Dylan
(recorded in 1961)

This is one of the few songs that Dylan recorded but has never
performed live.

According to Stacey Williams' liner notes for Bob Dylan's 1962
debut album  http://bobdylan.com/linernotes/bobdylan.html

"Dylan had never sung In My Time of Dyin' prior to this
recording session. He does not recall where he first heard it.
The guitar is fretted with the lipstick holder he borrowed from
his girl, Susie Rotolo, who sat devotedly and wide-eyed through
the recording session."

See the new Suze Rotolo biography "A Freewheelin' Time :
A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties" (Hardcover)
USA/Canada   UK

Lyrics as recorded by BOB DYLAN, New York, NY, Nov 20, 1961;
transcribed by Manfred Helfert.

Listen to sample clip (RealAudio or Windows Media)

"Jesus Gonna Make Up My Dyin' Bed" by Mississippi Fred McDowell
(recorded in 1964 - on 'My Home Is In The Delta - Blues and Spirituals'
by Fred and Annie McDowell and 'Amazing Grace' (Testament TCD
5004) by Fred McDowell And The Hunter's Chapel Singers



Also released in 2003 on
'The Very Best Of Mississippi Fred McDowell'
Heroes of the Blues series -Shout Factory CD DK 30256

see full Mississippi Fred McDowell discography

"Tone the Bell Easy" by Harry Belafonte



from the 1964 album "Ballads, Blues and Boasters"

Sheet music & lyrics
from "American Ballads and Folk Songs"
by John A. Lomax and Alan Lomax
(originally published by MacMillan in 1934 and
reprinted by Dover in 1994 - available from
Amazon.com)

"In My Time of Dying" by Led Zeppelin
(recorded in 1975 and included on their 'Physical Graffiti' album)
Lyrics as sung by Led Zeppelin

Extract from The Blue Highway article
"led bucket o'blood" by rachel s hanks

"inspired by [blind willie] johnson's jesus, make up my dying bed,
zeppelin adapted and manipulated the apocalyptical tune and
renamed it 'in my time of dying'. in my opinion, this piece best
represents zeppelin's keen sensitivity to light and shade. no other
song better exemplifies their fragile but powerful use of dynamics,
both in subject and sound. the song begins with a series of
melancholy danelectro guitar slides, very mellow and hymnlike in
nature, only to explode with an unexpected surge of sexual energy.
the two play off one another and build intensity, only to recede back
into docile churchmode again.

read the full article here.

There's also an interesting post by Chris M Zangara on the Experts:
Led Zeppelin list [which kindly references this page]  - see
http://experts.about.com/q/Led-Zeppelin-501/Time-Dying.htm 

"Jesus Is Going to Make up (My Dying Bed)" by Pop Staples
(produced by Ry Cooder and included on his 1994 album
Father Father)

Listen to sample clip Windows Media   RealAudio

"Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed" by Kelly Joe Phelps
(included on his 1994 album "Lead Me On")

Lyrics to Kelly Joe Phelps' version

"In My Time of Dying" by John Mellencamp
(included on his 1999 album 'Rough Harvest')

"In My Time of Dying" by The Be Good Tanyas
from their 2002 album "Chinatown"

Listen to streaming audio at Nettmusic.com

"In My Time of Dyin'" by The Rosinators
included on the 2003 album "The Rosinators"

Listen to streaming audio  broadband   dial-up

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