Musician, born near Morringsport, Louisiana, USA. A legendary singer and guitarist, he was raised near Shreveport, LA, worked on farms in Texas, and began performing in Dallas, TX as a protégé of Blind Lemon Jefferson in the 1910s. (Leadbelly got his nickname because of his deep bass voice.) In 1917 he was sentenced to prison on a murder conviction; eight years later he literally sang a plea of mercy to the Texas governor and was pardoned. In 1930 he was sentenced to 10 years for wounding a group of men with a knife, and in 1934 he composed a song for the Louisiana governor. With the intervention of the folklorists John and Alan Lomax, he won a reprieve in 1935. Over the next year, he travelled with John Lomax and recorded hundreds of songs that formed a cornerstone of the Library of Congress folklore archives. In 1938 he moved permanently to New York City where he recorded for Columbia Records and became a celebrated figure in literary and political circles. His best-known songs include Irene, Good Night, Rock Island Line, and Midnight Special.
| Huddie William "Lead Belly" Ledbetter | |
|---|---|
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| Born |
January 23, 1888 Mooringsport, Louisiana, U.S.A. |
| Genre(s) | Blues, Folk |
| Years active | 1936 - 1949 |
| Official site | http://www.leadbelly.org/ |
Huddie William Ledbetter (January 23, 1888 - December 6, 1949) was an American folk and blues musician, notable for his clear and forceful singing, his virtuosity on the twelve string guitar, and the rich songbook of folk standards he introduced.
The topics of Lead Belly's music covered a wide range of subjects, including gospel songs, blues songs about women, liquor, racism, folk songs about cowboys, prison, work, sailors, cattle herding, dancing, and songs concerning the newsmakers of the day, such as President Franklin Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, the Scottsboro Boys, and multi-millionaire Howard Hughes.
Biography
Early life
Lead Belly's date of birth was once a matter of debate. Wesley and Sallie were legally wed shortly after Lead Belly's birth, on February 26, 1888, even though they had lived together as husband and wife for years.
In any case, Lead Belly was born to Wesley and Sallie Ledbetter as Huddie William Ledbetter in a plantation near Mooringsport, Louisiana, but the family moved to nearby Leigh, Texas, when he was five.
Prison years
Lead Belly's boastful spirit and penchant for the occasional skirmish sometimes led him into trouble with the law, and in 1918 he was thrown into a Texas prison for the second time, this time after killing a man in a fight.
In 1930, Lead Belly was back in prison, this time in Louisiana for attempted homicide. The following year Lead Belly was once again pardoned, this time after a petition for his early release was taken to Louisiana Governor O.K.
Lead Belly acquired his nickname while he was in prison;
Life after prison
Indebted to the Lomaxes, Lead Belly allowed Alan to take him under his wing, and in late 1934 migrated to New York City with him, where he attained fame, though not fortune. In 1935 he married Martha Promise and began recording with the American Record Corporation, but achieved little commercial success with these records (in part because the company insisted he record blues songs rather than the folk for which he was better known), and the couple struggled financially.
Upon his release in 1940, Lead Belly returned to a surging New York folk scene, and befriended the likes of Woody Guthrie and a young Pete Seeger. During the first half of the decade he recorded for RCA, the Library of Congress, and for Moe Asch (future founder of Folkways Records), and in 1944 headed to California, where he recorded strong sessions for Capitol Records. Lead Belly died later that year in New York City, and was buried in the Shiloh Baptist Church cemetery, 8 miles west of Blanchard, Louisiana, in Caddo Parish.
Musical legacy
Lead Belly's vast songbook, much of which he adapted from previous sources, has provided material for numerous folk, country, pop and rock acts since his time, including Seeger's band The Weavers (who had a hit with "Goodnight Irene" the year after Lead Belly's death), The Animals (who had a hit with "The House of the Rising Sun" in 1964), Creedence Clearwater Revival (who recorded a popular version of "Midnight Special" in 1969), and Kurt Cobain (who covered "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" in 1993 to close Nirvana's MTV Unplugged performance).
Film
A Lead Belly biopic, titled Leadbelly, was released in 1976.
"Lead Belly" versus "Leadbelly"
Though many releases list him as "Leadbelly", the correct spelling of is actually "Lead Belly". This is the way he wrote his nickname, and it is also the way that his nickname is listed on his tombstone , as well as the Lead Belly Foundation and various LP/CD releases (most notably his recordings for Folkways, for example Lead Belly's Last Sessions and Where Did You Sleep Last Night).
Songs
"Ain't Goin Down the Well No More" "Ain't Gonna Drink No More" "Ain't Gonna Study War No More" "Ain't It a Shame" "Alabama Bound" "Alberta" "Amazing Grace" "Backslider, Fare thee Well" "Backwater Blues" "Becky Dean" "Big Fat Woman" "Birmingham Jail" "Black Betty" "Blind Lemon Blues" "Blue Tail Fly" "Blues Around New York" "The Boll Weevil" "Borrow Love & Allen" "Governor Pat Neff" "Green Corn" "Grey Goose" "Good Good Good" "Goodnight Irene" "Gwine Dig a Hole to Put Devil In" "Heaeh Mountain Stomp" "The Hindenburg Disaster" (Parts 1&2) "Howard Hughes" "If it Wasn't for Dicky" "I'm on My Last go Round" "I'm Sorry, Mama" "In New Orleans (House of the Rising Sun)" "Jean Harlow" "John Hardy" "John Henry" "Join the Band" "Julie Ann Johnson" "Keep Your Hands Off Her" "Leaving Blues" "Let it Shine on Me" "Line Em" "Looky Looky Yonder" "Medicine Man" "Mother's Blues" "The Midnight Special" "Mr. Hitler" "Must I be Carried into the Sky" "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen" "New York City" "Noted (No Good) Rider" "Oh, Something on My Mind" "Old Rattler" "Old Time Religion" "On a Christmas Day" "On a Monday" "Outshine the Sun" "Packing Trunk Blues" "Pick a Bale of Cotton" "Poor Howard" "Prayer" "Pretty Flowers in My Backyard" "Red River" "Ride On" "Roberta" "Rock Island Line" "The Roosevelt Song" "Run Sinners" "Sail On, Little Girl, Sail On" "The Scottsboro Boys" "Stand your Test in Judgement" "Sweet Mary Blues" "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" "Take a Whiff on Me" "Take this Hammer" "TB Blues" "Tell me Baby" "They Hung Him on a Cross" "The Titanic" "Turn your Radio On" "Western Plain" "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" ("Black Girl") "When I was a Cowboy" "When the Boys Were Out on the Western Plains" "When the Train Comes Along" "Whoa Back Buck" "Yellow Gal" "Yellow Womans Doorbells" "You Can't Lose-A Me Cholly" "You Don't Know my Mind" "You Must Have that Religion, Halleloo"Selected discography
The Library of Congress recordings
Lead Belly's complete Library of Congress recordings, done by John and Alan Lomax from 1934 to 1943, were released in a six volume series by Rounder Records in the early-to-mid 1990s:
Midnight Special (1991, Rounder Records) Gwine Dig a Hole to Put the Devil In (1991, Rounder Records) Let It Shine on Me (1991, Rounder Records) The Titanic (1994, Rounder Records) Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen (1994, Rounder Records) Go Down Old Hannah (1995, Rounder Records)
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