Musicians
- Keith Whitley — Guitar
- Renfro Proffitt — Guitar
- Danny Marshall — Mandolin
- Ralph Stanley — Banjo
- "Curly" Ray Cline — Fiddle
- Jack Cooke — Bass
“I Am Weary (Let Me Rest)” is credited to Pete Kuykendall, who also wrote under the name Pete Roberts, but its words reach back to the Civil War. In 1864 the Chicago publishers Root & Cady issued “Kiss Me Mother, Kiss Your Darling,” a song and chorus with music by George F. Root and words by Letta C. Lord, in which a dying soldier asks his mother to hold him: “Fold your loving arms around me — I am weary, let me rest.” The bluegrass song keeps that opening, the singer standing by the river while angels wait, and the promise to slumber sweetly. It drops the soldier and the flag. Here the singer thanks a mother who has always loved him and tried to save his life, and expects to lie “in a deep and lonely grave.”
Kuykendall was born in Washington in 1938 and briefly played banjo with the newly formed Country Gentlemen in 1958. He later built a recording studio, Wynwood, in the basement of his house in Falls Church, Virginia. The Country Gentlemen recorded the song at Wynwood on 27 September 1963: Charlie Waller sang lead, with John Duffey on tenor, Eddie Adcock on baritone and Tom Gray on bass. Mercury issued it that December on the album Folk Session Inside. Kuykendall co-founded Bluegrass Unlimited in 1966, became its editor in 1970 and was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 1996. He died in 2017.
Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys recorded it on 12 May 1977 at Lemco Sound Studio in Lexington, Kentucky, for the Rebel album Clinch Mountain Gospel, singing it as a quartet with Keith Whitley and Jack Cooke among the voices. James King recorded it in July 1988 for his Webco album It’s a Cold, Cold World. The Cox Family sang it on the soundtrack of the Coen brothers’ film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, released by Mercury in December 2000. That album was produced by T Bone Burnett and won the Grammy for Album of the Year in February 2002. Kuykendall’s obituary in the Washington Post singled out the song for its place in the film. Among later recordings is the Po’ Ramblin’ Boys’ version on God’s Love Is So Divine (2018).
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