Huddie William Ledbetter (; January 20, 1888 – December 6, 1949),
better known by the stage name Lead Belly, was an American
folk
Folk or Folks may refer to:
Sociology
*Nation
*People
* Folklore
** Folk art
** Folk dance
** Folk hero
** Folk music
*** Folk metal
*** Folk punk
*** Folk rock
** Folk religion
* Folk taxonomy
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Folk Plus or Fol ...
and
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
singer notable for his strong vocals,
virtuosity
''Virtuosity'' is a 1995 American science fiction action film directed by Brett Leonard and starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe. Howard W. Koch Jr. served as an executive producer for the film. The film was released in the United Sta ...
on the
twelve-string guitar
A twelve-string guitar (or 12-string guitar) is a steel-string guitar with 12 strings in six courses, which produces a thicker, more ringing tone than a standard six-string guitar. Typically, the strings of the lower four courses are tuned in o ...
, and the folk standards he introduced, including his renditions of "
In the Pines
"In the Pines", also known as "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?", "My Girl" and "Black Girl", is a traditional American folk song originating from two songs, "In the Pines" and "The Longest Train", both of whose authorship is unknown and date back ...
", "
Goodnight, Irene
"Goodnight, Irene" or "Irene, Goodnight," is a 20th-century American folk standard, written in time, first recorded by American blues musician Huddie 'Lead Belly' Ledbetter in 1933. A version recorded by the Weavers was a #1 hit in 1950.
The ...
", "
Midnight Special", "
Cotton Fields
"Cotton Fields (The Cotton Song)" (also known as In Them Old Cotton Fields Back Home) is a song written by American blues musician Huddie Ledbetter, better known as Lead Belly, who made the first recording of the song in 1940.
Early versions
Reco ...
", and "
Boll Weevil
The boll weevil (''Anthonomus grandis'') is a beetle that feeds on cotton buds and flowers. Thought to be native to Central Mexico, it migrated into the United States from Mexico in the late 19th century and had infested all U.S. cotton-growing ...
".
Lead Belly usually played a twelve-string guitar, but he also played the piano,
mandolin
A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...
, harmonica, violin, and
windjammer
A windjammer is a commercial sailing ship with multiple masts that may be square rigged, or fore-and-aft rigged, or a combination of the two. The informal term "windjammer" arose during the transition from the Age of Sail to the Age of Steam ...
. In some of his recordings, he sang while clapping his hands or stomping his foot.
Lead Belly's songs covered a wide range of genres, including
gospel music
Gospel music is a traditional genre of Christian music, and a cornerstone of Christian media. The creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of gospel music varies according to culture and social context. Gospel music is com ...
,
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
, and
folk music
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has b ...
, as well as a number of topics, including women, liquor, prison life, racism, cowboys, work, sailors, cattle herding, and dancing. He also wrote songs about people in the news, such as
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
,
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
,
Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow (born Harlean Harlow Carpenter; March 3, 1911 – June 7, 1937) was an American actress. Known for her portrayal of "bad girl" characters, she was the leading sex symbol of the early 1930s and one of the defining figures of the ...
,
Jack Johnson, the
Scottsboro Boys and
Howard Hughes
Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American business magnate, record-setting pilot, engineer, film producer, and philanthropist, known during his lifetime as one of the most influential and richest people in th ...
. Lead Belly was posthumously inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (RRHOF), sometimes simply referred to as the Rock Hall, is a museum
A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and othe ...
in 1988 and the
Louisiana Music Hall of Fame
The Louisiana Music Hall of Fame (LMHOF) is a non-profit hall of fame based in Baton Rouge, the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana, that seeks to honor and preserve the state's music culture and heritage and to promote education about the state ...
in 2008.
Though many releases credit him as "Leadbelly", he wrote his name as "Lead Belly". This is the spelling on his tombstone,
and that used by the Lead Belly Foundation.
Biography
Personal life
The younger of two children, Lead Belly was born Huddie William Ledbetter to Sallie Brown and Wesley Ledbetter on a plantation near
Mooringsport, Louisiana
Mooringsport is an incorporated municipality in the U.S. state of Louisiana, located in Caddo Parish. Part of the Shreveport–Bossier City metropolitan area and located approximately outside of the principal city of Shreveport, the town of Moori ...
. On his
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
draft registration card in 1942, he gave his birthplace as
Freeport, Louisiana ("Shreveport"). There is uncertainty over his precise date and year of birth. The Lead Belly Foundation gives his birth date as January 20, 1889, his grave marker gives the year 1889, and his 1942 draft registration card states January 23, 1889.
These records were made by census takers, and ages and dates were defined in terms of the census date. The
1900 United States Census lists "Hudy Ledbetter" as 12 years old, born January 1888, and the
1910 and
1930
Events
January
* January 15 – The Moon moves into its nearest point to Earth, called perigee, at the same time as its fullest phase of the Lunar Cycle. This is the closest moon distance at in recent history, and the next one will be ...
censuses also give his age as corresponding to a birth in 1888. The 1940 census lists his age as 51, with information supplied by wife Martha. The books ''Blues: A Regional Experience'' by Eagle and LeBlanc and ''Encyclopedia of Louisiana Musicians'' by Tomko give January 23, 1888,
while the ''Encyclopedia of the Blues'' gives January 20, 1888.
His parents had
cohabited for several years. They officially married on February 26, 1888, perhaps after his birth that year. When Huddie was five years old, the family settled in
Bowie County, Texas
Bowie County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of Texas. Its legal county seat is Boston, though its courthouse is located in New Boston. As of the 2020 census, the population was 92,893. Bowie County is part of the Texarkana metropolitan st ...
.
By the 1910 census of
Harrison County, Texas, "Hudy Ledbetter" was living next door to his parents in a separate household with his first wife, Aletha "Lethe" Henderson. Aletha is recorded as age 19 and married one year. Others say she was 15 when they married in 1908. Ledbetter received his first instrument in Texas, an
accordion
Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...
, from his uncle Terrell. By his early twenties, having fathered at least two children, Ledbetter left home to make his living as a guitarist and occasional laborer.
Music career
By 1903, Huddie was already a "musicianer",
a singer and guitarist of some note. He performed to
Shreveport audiences in St. Paul's Bottoms, a notorious
red-light district
A red-light district or pleasure district is a part of an urban area where a concentration of prostitution and sex-oriented businesses, such as sex shops, strip clubs, and adult theaters, are found. In most cases, red-light districts are particu ...
. He began to develop his own style of music after exposure to the various musical influences on Shreveport's Fannin Street, a row of saloons, brothels, and dance halls in the Bottoms. This area is now referred to as Ledbetter Heights.
Between 1915 and 1939, Ledbetter served several prison and jail terms in Louisiana for a variety of criminal charges. Thirty years after starting his music career, he was "discovered" in prison during a 1930s visit by
folklorist
Folklore studies, less often known as folkloristics, and occasionally tradition studies or folk life studies in the United Kingdom, is the branch of anthropology devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currenc ...
s
John Lomax
John Avery Lomax (September 23, 1867 – January 26, 1948) was an American teacher, a pioneering musicologist, and a folklorist who did much for the preservation of American folk music. He was the father of Alan Lomax, John Lomax Jr. and Bess Lo ...
and his son
Alan Lomax
Alan Lomax (; January 31, 1915 – July 19, 2002) was an American ethnomusicologist, best known for his numerous field recordings of folk music of the 20th century. He was also a musician himself, as well as a folklorist, archivist, writer, sch ...
. They were recording varieties of local music in the South as a project to preserve traditional music for the Library of Congress. This was one of numerous cultural projects during the Great Depression.
Deeply impressed by Ledbetter's vibrant tenor and extensive repertoire, the Lomaxes recorded him in 1933 on portable
aluminum disc In the field of audio recording, an aluminum disc (aluminium in the UK and elsewhere) is a phonograph (gramophone in the UK) record made of bare aluminum, a medium introduced in the late 1920s for making one-off recordings. Although sometimes used f ...
recording equipment in a project for the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
. They returned with new and better equipment in July 1934, recording hundreds of his songs. While in prison, Lead Belly may have first heard the traditional prison song "
Midnight Special"; his versions became famous.
On August 1, Ledbetter was released after having served nearly all of his minimum sentence. The Lomaxes had taken a record and a petition seeking his release to Louisiana Governor
Oscar K. Allen at his urgent request. It included his signature song, "
Goodnight Irene
"Goodnight, Irene" or "Irene, Goodnight," is a 20th-century American folk standard, written in time, first recorded by American blues musician Huddie 'Lead Belly' Ledbetter in 1933. A version recorded by the Weavers was a #1 hit in 1950.
The ...
".
A prison official later wrote to John Lomax denying that Ledbetter's singing had anything to do with his release from prison. (State prison records confirm he was eligible for this due to good behavior). But, both Ledbetter and the Lomaxes believed that the record they had taken to the governor had helped gain his release from prison.
Ledbetter returned to a state in the midst of the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
, and jobs were scarce. In September, needing regular work to satisfy parole, he asked
John Lomax
John Avery Lomax (September 23, 1867 – January 26, 1948) was an American teacher, a pioneering musicologist, and a folklorist who did much for the preservation of American folk music. He was the father of Alan Lomax, John Lomax Jr. and Bess Lo ...
to take him on as a paid driver. For three months, he assisted the 67-year-old in his folk song collecting around the South. Son Alan Lomax was ill and did not accompany his father on this trip.
[Lomax, Alan, ed. ''Folk Song USA''. New American Library.]
In December 1934, Lead Belly participated in a "smoker" (group sing) at a
Modern Language Association
The Modern Language Association of America, often referred to as the Modern Language Association (MLA), is widely considered the principal professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature. The MLA aims to "st ...
meeting at
Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh: ) is a women's liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Founded as a Quaker institution in 1885, Bryn Mawr is one of the Seven Sister colleges, a group of elite, historically women's colleges in the United St ...
in
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
, where the senior Lomax had a prior lecture engagement. He was written up in the press as a convict who had sung his way out of prison. On New Year's Day, 1935, the pair arrived in New York City, where Lomax was scheduled to meet with his publisher,
Macmillan, about a new collection of folk songs. The newspapers were eager to write about the "singing convict".
''Time'' magazine made one of its first ''
March of Time
''The March of Time'' is an American newsreel series sponsored by Time Inc. and shown in movie theaters from 1935 to 1951. It was based on a radio news series broadcast from 1931 to 1945. The "voice" of both series was Westbrook Van Voorhis. Pr ...
''
newsreel
A newsreel is a form of short documentary film, containing news stories and items of topical interest, that was prevalent between the 1910s and the mid 1970s. Typically presented in a cinema, newsreels were a source of current affairs, informa ...
s about him. Lead Belly attained fame''—''although not fortune.
On January 23–25, 1935, Lead Belly had the first of several recording sessions with
American Record Corporation
American Record Corporation (ARC), also referred to as American Record Company, American Recording Corporation, or ARC Records, was an American record company.
Overview
ARC was created in January 1929 by Louis G. Sylvester, president of Scran ...
(ARC). These sessions, combined with two others on February 5 and March 25, yielded 53 takes. Of those recordings, only six were ever released during Lead Belly's lifetime. ARC decided to simultaneously release these songs on six different labels they owned: Banner, Melotone, Oriole, Perfect, Romeo, and Paramount.
These recordings achieved little commercial success. Part of the reason for the poor sales may have been that ARC released only his
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
songs rather than the folk songs for which he would later become better known. Lead Belly continued to struggle financially. Like many performers, what income he made during his career came from touring, not from record sales. In February 1935, he married his girlfriend, Martha Promise, who came North from Louisiana to join him.
During February Ledetter recorded his repertoire with Alan Lomax, who also recorded other African Americans. Lomax interviewed Ledbetter about his life for their forthcoming book, ''Negro Folk Songs As Sung by Lead Belly'' (1936). But his father, who had a management contract with Lead Belly, was not able to arrange concert dates. In March 1935, Lead Belly accompanied John Lomax on a previously scheduled two-week lecture tour of colleges and universities in the Northeast, culminating at
Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
.
At the end of the month, John Lomax decided he could no longer work with Lead Belly. He gave him and Martha enough money to return by bus to Louisiana. He also gave Martha the money her husband had earned during three months of performing, but in installments, on the pretext that Lead Belly would spend it all on drinking if he was given a lump sum. From Louisiana, Lead Belly successfully sued Lomax for both the full amount of his earnings and release from his management contract. The quarrel was bitter, with hard feelings on both sides. In the midst of the legal wrangling, Lead Belly wrote to Lomax proposing they team up again, but this did not happen. The book that the Lomaxes published about Lead Belly in the fall of 1936 proved a commercial failure.
In January 1936, Lead Belly returned to New York on his own, without John Lomax, in an attempted comeback. He performed twice a day at Harlem's
Apollo Theater
The Apollo Theater is a music hall at 253 West 125th Street between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard (Seventh Avenue) and Frederick Douglass Boulevard (Eighth Avenue) in the Harlem neighborhood of Upper Manhattan in New York City. It is a not ...
during the Easter season. He developed a live dramatic recreation of the ''March of Time'' newsreel (itself a recreation), which was about his prison encounter with John Lomax, when he was still wearing uniform stripes. By this time he was no longer associated with Lomax.
''Life'' magazine ran a three-page article titled "Lead Belly: Bad Nigger Makes Good Minstrel" in its issue of April 19, 1937. It included a full-page, color (rare in those days) picture of him sitting on grain sacks playing his guitar and singing.
Also included was a striking photograph of his wife Martha Promise (identified in the article as his manager). Other photos showed Lead Belly's hands playing the guitar (with the caption "these hands once killed a man"), Texas Governor
Pat M. Neff, and the "ramshackle" Texas State Penitentiary. The article attributes both of his pardons to his singing his petitions to the governors, who were so moved that they pardoned him. The article closed by saying that Lead Belly "may well be on the brink of a new and prosperous period."
Lead Belly failed to stir the enthusiasm of
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), ...
audiences. Instead, he attained success playing at concerts and benefits for an audience of
folk music
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has b ...
aficionados. He developed his own style of singing and explaining his repertoire in the context of Southern black culture, having learned from his participation in Lomax's college lectures. He was especially successful with his repertoire of children's game songs (as a younger man in Louisiana he had sung regularly at children's birthday parties in the black community). Black novelist
Richard Wright wrote about him as a heroic figure in the ''
Daily Worker
The ''Daily Worker'' was a newspaper published in New York City by the Communist Party USA, a formerly Comintern-affiliated organization. Publication began in 1924. While it generally reflected the prevailing views of the party, attempts were m ...
,'' of which Wright was the Harlem editor. The two men became personal friends. In contrast to Wright, who was then a communist, commentators described Lead Belly as apolitical. He was known to support
Wendell Willkie
Wendell Lewis Willkie (born Lewis Wendell Willkie; February 18, 1892 – October 8, 1944) was an American lawyer, corporate executive and the 1940 Republican nominee for President. Willkie appealed to many convention delegates as the Republican ...
, the centrist
Republican
Republican can refer to:
Political ideology
* An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law.
** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
candidate for president, for whom he wrote a campaign song. Lead Belly also wrote the song "
The Bourgeois Blues
"The Bourgeois Blues" is a blues song by American folk and blues musician Lead Belly. It was written in June 1937 in response to the discrimination and segregation that he faced during a visit to Washington, D.C. to record for Alan Lomax. It rails ...
", which has class-conscious and anti-racist lyrics.
In 1939, Lead Belly was convicted and sentenced again to prison. Alan Lomax, then 24, took him under his wing and helped raise money for his legal expenses, dropping out of graduate school to do so. After gaining release, Lead Belly appeared as a regular on Lomax and
Nicholas Ray
Nicholas Ray (born Raymond Nicholas Kienzle Jr., August 7, 1911 – June 16, 1979) was an American film director, screenwriter, and actor best known for the 1955 film ''Rebel Without a Cause.'' He is appreciated for many narrative features pr ...
's groundbreaking
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
radio show ''Back Where I Come From'', broadcast nationwide.
He also performed in nightclubs with
Josh White
Joshua Daniel White (February 11, 1914 – September 5, 1969) was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, actor and civil rights activist. He also recorded under the names Pinewood Tom and Tippy Barton in the 1930s.
White grew up in the Sout ...
, becoming a fixture in New York City's surging folk music scene and befriending the likes of
Sonny Terry
Saunders Terrell (October 24, 1911 – March 11, 1986), known as Sonny Terry, was an American Piedmont blues and folk musician, who was known for his energetic blues harmonica style, which frequently included vocal whoops and hollers and oc ...
,
Brownie McGhee
Walter Brown "Brownie" McGhee (November 30, 1915 – February 16, 1996) was an American folk music and Piedmont blues singer and guitarist, best known for his collaboration with the harmonica player Sonny Terry.
Life and career
McGhee was ...
,
Woody Guthrie
Woodrow Wilson Guthrie (; July 14, 1912 – October 3, 1967) was an American singer-songwriter, one of the most significant figures in American folk music. His work focused on themes of American socialism and anti-fascism. He has inspired ...
, and
Pete Seeger
Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notably ...
, all fellow performers on ''Back Where I Come From''.
In 1940, Lead Belly recorded for RCA Victor, one of the biggest record companies at the time. These sessions in California were held on June 15 and 17, with the
Golden Gate Quartet
The Golden Gate Quartet (a.k.a. The Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet) is an American vocal group. It was formed in 1934 and, with changes in membership, remains active.
Origins and early career
The group was founded as the Golden Gate Jubilee Singe ...
accompanying some songs. The recordings resulted in the album, ''
The Midnight Special and Other Southern Prison Songs
''The Midnight Special and Other Southern Prison Songs'' is an album by Lead Belly and the Golden Gate Quartet, recorded for Victor Records in 1940 and released a few months later.
In 1939, Lead Belly was back in jail for assault after stabbing ...
'', being issued by
Victor Records
The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American recording company and phonograph manufacturer that operated independently from 1901 until 1929, when it was acquired by the Radio Corporation of America and subsequently operated as a subsidi ...
. The album included sheets with extensive notes and song texts prepared by Alan Lomax. According to Charles Wolfe and Kip Lornell, "it was one of the finest public presentations of Leadbelly's music: well recorded, well advertised, well documented. And the album justified its reputation as a landmark in African American folk music."
Several of the recordings from these sessions were also issued as singles by
Bluebird Records
Bluebird Records is a record label best known for its low-cost releases, primarily of kids' music, blues and jazz in the 1930s and 1940s. It was founded in 1932 as a lower-priced RCA Victor subsidiary label of RCA Victor. Bluebird became known ...
.
In 1941, Lead Belly was introduced to
Moses "Moe" Asch by mutual friends. Asch owned a recording studio and small record label, which mainly released folk records for the local New York City market. He later founded
Folkways Records
Folkways Records was a record label founded by Moses Asch that documented folk, world, and children's music. It was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution in 1987 and is now part of Smithsonian Folkways.
History
The Folkways Records & Service ...
. Between 1941 and 1944, Lead Belly released three albums under the Asch Recordings label.
During the first half of the 1940s, Lead Belly also recorded for the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
.
In 1944 he went to California, where he recorded strong sessions for
Capitol Records
Capitol Records, LLC (known legally as Capitol Records, Inc. until 2007) is an American record label distributed by Universal Music Group through its Capitol Music Group imprint. It was founded as the first West Coast-based record label of note ...
. He lodged with a studio guitar player on Merrywood Drive in Laurel Canyon. Later he returned to New York City. In 1949, Lead Belly had a regular radio show, ''Folk Songs of America'', broadcast on station WNYC in New York, on
Henrietta Yurchenco's show on Sunday nights. Later in the year he began his first European tour with a trip to France, but fell ill before its completion and was diagnosed with
amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neuron disease (MND) or Lou Gehrig's disease, is a neurodegenerative disease that results in the progressive loss of motor neurons that control voluntary muscles. ALS is the most comm ...
(ALS), or
Lou Gehrig
Henry Louis Gehrig (born Heinrich Ludwig Gehrig ; June 19, 1903June 2, 1941) was an American professional baseball first baseman who played 17 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the New York Yankees (1923–1939). Gehrig was renowned f ...
's disease (a motor neuron disease).
Lead Belly was the first American country blues musician to achieve success in Europe.
His final concert was at the
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
in a tribute to his former mentor,
John Lomax
John Avery Lomax (September 23, 1867 – January 26, 1948) was an American teacher, a pioneering musicologist, and a folklorist who did much for the preservation of American folk music. He was the father of Alan Lomax, John Lomax Jr. and Bess Lo ...
, who had died the previous year. Martha also performed at that concert, singing spirituals with Lead Belly.
Lead Belly died later that year in New York City. He was buried in the Shiloh Baptist Church cemetery, in
Mooringsport, Louisiana
Mooringsport is an incorporated municipality in the U.S. state of Louisiana, located in Caddo Parish. Part of the Shreveport–Bossier City metropolitan area and located approximately outside of the principal city of Shreveport, the town of Moori ...
, west of
Blanchard
Blanchard is a French family name. It is also used as a given name. It derives from the Old French word ''blanchart'' which meant "whitish, bordering upon white". It is also an obsolete term for a white horse.
Geographical distribution
As of 2014, ...
, in Caddo Parish.
He is honored with a statue across from the Caddo Parish Courthouse, in
Shreveport.
Legal issues
![Huddie William Ledbetter in July 1934, from- Angola Prison -- Leadbelly in the foreground (cropped)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Huddie_William_Ledbetter_in_July_1934%2C_from-_Angola_Prison_--_Leadbelly_in_the_foreground_%28cropped%29.jpg)
Lead Belly was imprisoned multiple times beginning in 1915, when he was convicted of carrying a pistol, and sentenced to time on the Harrison County
chain gang. He later escaped and found work in nearby
Bowie County under the assumed name of Walter Boyd.
In January 1918, he was imprisoned at the Imperial Farm (now
Central Unit)
[Perkinson, Robert (2010). ''Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire''. ]Metropolitan Books
Henry Holt and Company is an American book-publishing company based in New York City. One of the oldest publishers in the United States, it was founded in 1866 by Henry Holt and Frederick Leypoldt. Currently, the company publishes in the fields ...
184
. in
Sugar Land, Texas
Sugar Land is the largest city in Fort Bend County, Texas, United States, located in the southwestern part of the metropolitan area. Located about southwest of downtown Houston, Sugar Land is a populous suburban municipality centered around th ...
, after being convicted of killing a relative, Will Stafford, in a fight over a woman. During his second prison term, Lead Belly was stabbed in the neck by another inmate. (The wound resulted in a fearsome scar the musician covered with a bandana). Lead Belly nearly killed his attacker at the time with his own knife.
In 1925 he was pardoned and released after writing a song to Texas Governor
Pat Morris Neff
Pat Morris Neff (November 26, 1871 – January 20, 1952) was an American politician, educator and administrator, and the 28th Governor of Texas from 1921 to 1925, ninth President of Baylor University from 1932 to 1947, and twenty-fifth presid ...
seeking his freedom, having served the minimum seven years of a 7-35 year sentence. He was credited with good behavior, which included entertaining the guards and fellow prisoners. He also appealed for mercy to Neff's known religious beliefs. It was a testament to his persuasive powers, as Neff had run for governor on a pledge not to issue pardons (most Southern judicial systems had no provision for approving parole from prison.). After meeting Lead Belly in 1924, Neff returned to the prison several times after he was incarcerated again. He brought guests to the prison on Sunday picnics to hear Ledbetter perform.
In 1930, Ledbetter was sentenced to
Louisiana State Penitentiary
The Louisiana State Penitentiary (known as Angola, and nicknamed the "Alcatraz of the South", "The Angola Plantation" and "The Farm"Sutton, Keith "Catfish".Out There: Angola angling. ''ESPN Outdoors''. May 31, 2006. Retrieved on August 25, 2010. ...
(nicknamed "Angola") after a summary trial for attempted homicide for stabbing a man in a fight. In 1939, Lead Belly served his final jail term for assault after stabbing a man in a fight in
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
.
Nicknamed "Lead Belly"
There are several conflicting stories about how Ledbetter acquired the nickname "Lead Belly", it probably happened while he was in prison. Some claim his fellow inmates called him "Lead Belly" as a play on his family name and his physical toughness. Others say he earned the name after being wounded in the stomach with
buckshot
A shotgun shell, shotshell or simply shell is a type of rimmed, cylindrical (straight-walled) cartridges used specifically in shotguns, and is typically loaded with numerous small, pellet-like spherical sub-projectiles called shot, fired thro ...
.
[The Mudcat Cafe]
Leadbelly – King of the 12 String Guitar
Retrieved on January 30, 2007 Another theory is that the name refers to his ability to drink
moonshine
Moonshine is high-proof liquor that is usually produced illegally. The name was derived from a tradition of creating the alcohol during the nighttime, thereby avoiding detection. In the first decades of the 21st century, commercial dist ...
, the homemade liquor that Southern farmers, black and white, made to supplement their incomes.
Blues singer
Big Bill Broonzy
Big Bill Broonzy (born Lee Conley Bradley; June 26, 1903 – August 14, 1958) was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. His career began in the 1920s, when he played country music to mostly African American audiences. In the 1930s ...
thought it came from a supposed tendency to lie about as if "with a stomach weighted down by lead" in the shade when the chain gang was supposed to be working.
Technique
Lead Belly styled himself "King of the Twelve-String Guitar", and despite his use of other instruments, such as the accordion, the most enduring image of Lead Belly as a performer is wielding his unusually large
Stella twelve-string. This guitar had a slightly longer
scale length than a standard guitar, increasing the tension on the instrument, which, given the added tension of the six extra strings, meant that a trapeze-style tailpiece was needed to help resist bridge lifting. It had slotted tuners and ladder bracing.
Lead Belly played with finger picks much of the time, using a thumb pick to provide walking bass lines described as "tricky" and "inventive", and occasionally to strum. This technique, combined with low tunings and heavy strings, gives many of his recordings a piano-like sound. Scholars have suggested much of his guitar playing was inspired equally by
barrelhouse piano and the Mexican
Bajo Sexto
Bajo sexto (Spanish: "sixth bass") is a Mexican string instrument from the guitar family with 12 strings in six double courses. A closely related instrument is the bajo quinto (Spanish: "fifth bass") which has 10 strings in five double courses ...
, a type of guitar that he encountered in Texas and Louisiana.
Lead Belly's tunings are debated by both modern and contemporary musicians and blues enthusiasts alike, but it seems to be a down-tuned variant of standard tuning. Footage of his chording is scarce, so trying to decode his chords is difficult. It is likely that he tuned his guitar strings relative to one another, so that the actual notes shifted as the strings wore. Such down-tuning was a common technique before the development of
truss rod
The truss rod is a component of a guitar or other stringed instrument that stabilizes the lengthwise forward curvature (also called ''relief'') of the neck. Usually, it is a steel bar or rod that runs through the inside of the neck, beneath the fi ...
s, and was intended to prevent the instrument's neck from warping. Lead Belly's playing style was popularized by
Pete Seeger
Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notably ...
, who adopted the twelve-string guitar in the 1950s and released an instructional LP and book using Lead Belly as an exemplar of technique.
In some of the recordings in which Lead Belly accompanied himself, he made an unusual type of grunt between his verses, sometimes described as "haah!" Songs such as "Looky Looky Yonder", "
Take This Hammer
"Take This Hammer" ( Roud 4299, AFS 745B1) is a prison, logging, and railroad work song, which has the same Roud number as another song, "Nine Pound Hammer", with which it shares verses. " Swannanoa Tunnel" and "Asheville Junction" are similar. T ...
",
"Linin' Track", and "Julie Ann Johnson" feature this unusual vocalization. In "Take This Hammer", Lead Belly explained, "Every time the men say, 'Haah,' the hammer falls. The hammer rings, and we swing, and we sing." The "haah" sound can also be heard in work chants sung by Southern railroad section workers, "
gandy dancer
Gandy dancer is a slang term used for early Rail transport, railroad workers in the United States, more formally referred to as "section hands", who laid and maintained Track (rail transport), railroad tracks in the years before the work was don ...
s", in which it was used to coordinate work crews as they laid and maintained tracks.
Legacy
In 1976, a biopic titled ''
Leadbelly
Huddie William Ledbetter (; January 20, 1888 – December 6, 1949), better known by the stage name Lead Belly, was an American folk music, folk and blues singer notable for his strong vocals, Virtuoso, virtuosity on the twelve-string guita ...
'' was released, directed by
Gordon Parks
Gordon Roger Alexander Buchanan Parks (November 30, 1912 – March 7, 2006) was an American photographer, composer, author, poet, and film director, who became prominent in U.S. documentary photojournalism in the 1940s through 1970s—particu ...
and featuring
Roger E. Mosley
Roger Earl Mosley (; December 18, 1938 – August 7, 2022) was an American actor, director, and writer best known for his role as the helicopter pilot Theodore "T.C." Calvin in the CBS television series '' Magnum, P.I.'', which originally aired ...
as Lead Belly.
In 1951,
the Weavers
The Weavers were an American folk music quartet based in the Greenwich Village area of New York City originally consisting of Lee Hays, Pete Seeger, Ronnie Gilbert, and Fred Hellerman. Founded in 1948, the group sang traditional folk songs fro ...
' recording of their arrangement of Lead Belly's "Irene," released as "
Good Night, Irene," was the first folk song to reach #1 on the U.S. charts, selling some two million copies.
Kurt Cobain
Kurt Donald Cobain (February 20, 1967 – April 5, 1994) was an American musician who served as the lead vocalist, guitarist and primary songwriter of the rock band Nirvana. Through his angst-fueled songwriting and anti-establishment persona ...
promoted the legacy of Lead Belly, and some modern rock audiences owe their familiarity with Lead Belly to Nirvana's performance of "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" (which Lead Belly called "
In the Pines
"In the Pines", also known as "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?", "My Girl" and "Black Girl", is a traditional American folk song originating from two songs, "In the Pines" and "The Longest Train", both of whose authorship is unknown and date back ...
") on a televised concert later released as ''
MTV Unplugged in New York
''MTV Unplugged in New York'' is a live album by American rock band Nirvana, released on November 1, 1994, by DGC Records. It features an acoustic performance recorded at Sony Music Studios in New York City on November 18, 1993, for the telev ...
''. Cobain refers to his attempt to convince
David Geffen
David Lawrence Geffen (born February 21, 1943) is an American business magnate, producer and film studio executive. He co-created Asylum Records in 1971 with Elliot Roberts, Geffen Records in 1980, DGC Records in 1990, and DreamWorks SKG in 199 ...
to purchase Lead Belly's guitar for him in an interval before the song is played. In his notebooks, Cobain listed Lead Belly's ''Last Session Vol. 1'' as one of the 50 albums most influential in the formation of Nirvana's sound.
It was included in ''
NME
''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...
's'' "The 100 Greatest Albums You've Never Heard list".
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
credits Lead Belly for getting him into folk music. In his Nobel Prize Lecture, Dylan said "somebody – somebody I'd never seen before – handed me a Lead Belly record with the song '
Cotton Fields
"Cotton Fields (The Cotton Song)" (also known as In Them Old Cotton Fields Back Home) is a song written by American blues musician Huddie Ledbetter, better known as Lead Belly, who made the first recording of the song in 1940.
Early versions
Reco ...
' on it. And that record changed my life right then and there. Transported me into a world I'd never known. It was like an explosion went off. Like I'd been walking in darkness and all of the sudden the darkness was illuminated. It was like somebody laid hands on me. I must have played that record a hundred times." Dylan also pays homage to him in "
Song to Woody
"Song to Woody" was written by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan and released on his debut album, ''Bob Dylan,'' in 1962. The song conveys Dylan's appreciation of American folk legend Woody Guthrie. The song is one of two original compositions ...
" on his
self-titled debut album.
Lonnie Donegan
Anthony James Donegan (29 April 1931 – 3 November 2002), known as Lonnie Donegan, was a British skiffle singer, songwriter and musician, referred to as the "King of Skiffle", who influenced 1960s British pop and rock musicians. Born in Scotl ...
's recording of "
Rock Island Line
"Rock Island Line" is an American folk song. Ostensibly about the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad, it appeared as a folk song as early as 1929. The first recorded performance of "Rock Island Line" was by inmates of the Arkansas Cummins ...
", released as a single in late 1955, signaled the start of the UK
skiffle
Skiffle is a genre of folk music with influences from American folk music, blues, country, bluegrass, and jazz, generally performed with a mixture of manufactured and homemade or improvised instruments. Originating as a form in the United State ...
craze.
George Harrison
George Harrison (25 February 1943 – 29 November 2001) was an English musician and singer-songwriter who achieved international fame as the lead guitarist of the Beatles. Sometimes called "the quiet Beatle", Harrison embraced Indian c ...
of
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...
was quoted as saying, "if there was no Lead Belly, there would have been no Lonnie Donegan; no Lonnie Donegan, no Beatles. Therefore no Lead Belly, no Beatles." In a
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
– claimed that the British popular music scene of the 1960s wouldn't have happened if it weren't for Lead Belly's influence. "I'd put my money on that," he said. Wood concurred.
Indian singer
who was in general influenced by spirituals during his days as a student in the US, transcreated Lead Belly's singing of "We're in the Same Boat Brother" into the
as "''Ami ekekhon nawore zatri''" (আমি একেখন নাৱৰে যাত্ৰী). Later, he also released a
version as "''Mora jatri eki toronir''" (মোরা যাত্রী একই তরণীর).
In 2001 English-Canadian blues singer
''. It contains cover versions of Lead Belly songs, and features a six-minute
developed his singing style from trying to sing like Lead Belly. "On the back of the record, it said his voice was so big, you had to turn your record player down," Ezra says. "I liked the idea of singing with a big voice, so I tried it, and I could."
In 2015, in celebration of Lead Belly's 125th birthday, several events were held.
held ''Lead Belly at 125: A Tribute to an American Songster,'' a musical event featuring
, among others Also in Washington, D.C., ''Bourgeois Town: Lead Belly in Washington DC'' by the
was held where Todd Harvey interviewed Lead Belly family members about their relative, his contributions to American culture and world music and an overview of the significant Lead Belly materials in the center's archive In London, England, the
, and more.
'' in April 1912, Ledbetter wrote the song "The Titanic", his first composition on the twelve-string guitar, which later became his signature instrument. Initially played when performing with
's being denied passage on the ''Titanic''. Johnson had in fact
for being black, but it was not the ''Titanic''. Still, the song includes the lyric "Jack Johnson tried to get on board. The Captain, he says, 'I ain't haulin' no coal!' Fare thee, ''Titanic''! Fare thee well!" Ledbetter later noted he had to leave out this passage when playing in front of white audiences.
:
* ''Midnight Special'' (1991)
* ''Gwine Dig a Hole to Put the Devil In'' (1991)
* ''Let It Shine on Me'' (1991)
* ''The Titanic'' (1994)
* ''Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen'' (1994)
* ''Go Down Old Hannah'' (1995)
:
* ''Where Did You Sleep Last Night'', Lead Belly Legacy, Vol. 1 (1996)
* ''Bourgeois Blues'', Lead Belly Legacy, Vol. 2 (1997)
* ''Shout On'', Lead Belly Legacy, Vol. 3 (1998)
'' (1989)
* ''Lead Belly's Last Sessions'' (4-CD box set, 1994), recorded late 1948 in New York City; his only commercial recordings on
'' (1999)
* ''Folkways: The Original Vision'', Woody Guthrie and Lead Belly (2004), expanded version of the 1989 compilation
* ''