Leadbelly - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Huddie William Ledbetter (January 20, 1888 – December 6, 1949) was an iconic American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

and blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

musician, notable for his strong vocals, his virtuosity on the twelve-string guitar, and the songbook of folk standards he introduced.

He is best known as Lead Belly. Though many releases list him as "Leadbelly", he himself spelled it "Lead Belly". This is also the usage on his tombstone, as well as of the Lead Belly Foundation. In 1994 the Lead Belly Foundation contacted an authority on the history of popular music, Colin Larkin

Colin Larkin

Colin Larkin is an Irish professional footballer, who plays primarily as a forward. He currently plays for Hartlepool United.-Playing career:...

, editor of the Encyclopedia of Popular Music

Encyclopedia of Popular Music

The Encyclopedia of Popular Music was created in 1989 by Colin Larkin. It is the 'modern man's' equivalent of the Grove Dictionary of Music which Larkin describes in less than flattering terms.-History of the encyclopedia:...

, to ask if the name "Leadbelly" could be altered to "Lead Belly" in the hope that other authors would follow suit and use the artist's correct appellation.

Although Lead Belly most commonly played the twelve-string, he could also play the piano

Piano

The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

, mandolin

Mandolin

A mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family . It descends from the mandore, a soprano member of the lute family. The mandolin soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections. A mandolin may have f-holes, or a single...

, harmonica

Harmonica

The harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...

, violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

, and accordion

Accordion

The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....

. In some of his recordings, such as in one of his versions of the folk ballad "John Hardy"

John Hardy (song)

"John Hardy" is a traditional American folk song based on the life of a railroad worker in West Virginia. The historical John Hardy killed a man during a craps game, was found guilty of murder in the first degree, and was hanged on January 19, 1894....

, he performs on the accordion instead of the guitar. In other recordings he just sings while clapping his hands or stomping his foot.

The topics of Lead Belly's music covered a wide range of subjects, including gospel

Gospel

A gospel is an account, often written, that describes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In a more general sense the term "gospel" may refer to the good news message of the New Testament. It is primarily used in reference to the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John...

songs; blues

Blues

songs about women, liquor and racism

Racism

Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...

; and folk songs about cowboys, prison, work, sailors, cattle herding, and dancing. He also wrote songs concerning the newsmakers of the day, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...

, Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

, Jean Harlow

Jean Harlow

Jean Harlow was an American film actress and sex symbol of the 1930s. Known as the "Blonde Bombshell" and the "Platinum Blonde" , Harlow was ranked as one of the greatest movie stars of all time by the American Film Institute...

, the Scottsboro Boys

Scottsboro Boys

The Scottsboro Boys were nine black teenage boys accused of rape in Alabama in 1931. The landmark set of legal cases from this incident dealt with racism and the right to a fair trial...

, and Howard Hughes

Howard Hughes

Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. was an American business magnate, investor, aviator, engineer, film producer, director, and philanthropist. He was one of the wealthiest people in the world...

.

In 2008, Lead Belly was inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame

Louisiana Music Hall of Fame

The Louisiana Music Hall of Fame is an IRS certified 501 non-profit organization based in the state capitol of Baton Rouge, La., that seeks to preserve Louisiana's rich music culture and heritage and to further educate its citizens and people worldwide about the state’s unique role contributing...

Early life

Born Huddie William Ledbetter on the Jeter Plantation near Mooringsport, Louisiana

Mooringsport, Louisiana

Mooringsport is a village in Caddo Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 833 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Shreveport–Bossier City Metropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography: Mooringsport is located at ....

, the younger of two children to Sallie Brown and Wesley Ledbetter. He had an older sister named Australia. Huddie is pronounced HYEW-dee or HUGH-dee.

Ledbetter was probably born in January 1888, though his grave marker lists his birth date as January 23, 1889. The 1900 United States Census lists "Hudy William Ledbetter" as 12 years old, and his birth date as January 20, 1888. The 1910 United States Census and the 1930 United States Census also list his birth date as January 20, 1888. In April 1942, Ledbetter filled out his World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

draft registration, listing his birth date as January 23, 1889.

His parents married on February 26, 1888, but had cohabited

Cohabitation

Cohabitation usually refers to an arrangement whereby two people decide to live together on a long-term or permanent basis in an emotionally and/or sexually intimate relationship. The term is most frequently applied to couples who are not married...

for several years.

When Ledbetter was five years old, the family settled in Bowie County, Texas

Bowie County, Texas

Bowie County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. It is part of the Texarkana, Texas - Texarkana, Arkansas, Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of 2000, the population was 89,306. Its legal county seat is Boston, though its courthouse is located in New Boston...

.

By 1903, Lead Belly was already a "musicianer", a singer and guitarist of some note. He performed for nearby Shreveport

Shreveport, Louisiana

Shreveport is the third largest city in Louisiana. It is the principal city of the fourth largest metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana and is the 109th-largest city in the United States....

audiences in St. Paul's Bottoms, a notorious red-light district

Red-light district

A red-light district is a part of an urban area where there is a concentration of prostitution and sex-oriented businesses, such as sex shops, strip clubs, adult theaters, etc...

there. Lead Belly began to develop his own style of music after exposure to a variety of musical influences on Shreveport's Fannin Street, a row of saloons, brothels, and dance halls in the Bottoms.

At the time of the 1910 census, Lead Belly, still officially listed as "Hudy", was living next door to his parents with his first wife, Aletha "Lethe" Henderson, who at the time of the census was 17 years old, and was, therefore, 15 at the time of their marriage in 1908. It was also there that he received his first instrument, an accordion

Accordion

, from his uncle, and by his early 20s, after fathering at least two children, he left home to find his living as a guitarist (and occasionally as a laborer).

Influenced by the sinking of the RMS Titanic in April 1912, he wrote the song "The Titanic", which noted the racial differences of the time. "The Titanic" was the first song he ever learned to play on a 12-string guitar, which was later to become his signature instrument. He first played it in 1912 when performing with Blind Lemon Jefferson

Blind Lemon Jefferson

"Blind" Lemon Jefferson was an American blues singer and guitarist from Texas. He was one of the most popular blues singers of the 1920s, and has been titled "Father of the Texas Blues"....

(1897–1929) in and around Dallas, Texas

Dallas, Texas

Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...

. The song is about champion African-American boxer Jack Johnson

Jack Johnson (boxer)

John Arthur Johnson , nicknamed the “Galveston Giant,” was an American boxer. At the height of the Jim Crow era, Johnson became the first African American world heavyweight boxing champion...

being denied passage on the Titanic due to his race (in point of fact, although Johnson was denied passage on a ship for being black

Black people

The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...

, he was not denied entrance to the Titanic ), with the iconic line, "Jack Johnson tried to get on board. The Captain, he says, 'I ain't haulin' no coal!' Fare thee, Titanic! Fare thee well!" Lead Belly noted that he had to leave out this verse when playing in front of white

White people

White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...

audiences.

Prison years

Ledbetter's volatile temper sometimes led him into trouble with the law. In 1915 he was convicted "of carrying a pistol" and sentenced to do time on the Harrison County chain gang

Chain gang

A chain gang is a group of prisoners chained together to perform menial or physically challenging work, such as mining or timber collecting, as a form of punishment. Such punishment might include building roads, digging ditches or chipping stone...

, from which he escaped, finding work in nearby Bowie County

Bowie County, Texas

under the assumed name of Walter Boyd. In January 1918 he was imprisoned a second time, this time after killing one of his relatives, Will Stafford, in a fight over a woman. In 1918 he was incarcerated in Sugar Land

Sugar Land, Texas

Sugar Land is a city in the U.S. state of Texas within the metropolitan area and Fort Bend County. Sugar Land is one of the most affluent and fastest-growing cities in Texas, having grown more than 158 percent in the last decade. In the time period of 2000–2007, Sugar Land also enjoyed a...

west of Houston

Houston, Texas

Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States, and the largest city in the state of Texas. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 2.1 million people within an area of . Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of , which is the ...

, Texas, where he probably learned the song "Midnight Special"

Midnight Special (song)

"Midnight Special" is a traditional folk song thought to have originated among prisoners in the American South. The title comes from the refrain which refers to the Midnight Special and its "ever-loving light" ....

. He served time in the Imperial Farm (now Central Unit

Central Unit

The Central Unit was a Texas Department of Criminal Justice men's prison in Sugar Land, Texas. The approximately facility is from central Sugar Land on U.S. Highway 90A. The unit first opened in April 1909. The unit had 950 beds for men...

) in Sugar Land. In 1925 he was pardoned and released, having served seven years, or virtually all of the minimum of his seven-to-35-year sentence, after writing a song appealing to Governor Pat Morris Neff

Pat Morris Neff

Pat Morris Neff was the 28th Governor of Texas from 1921 to 1925 and 9th President of Baylor University from 1932 to 1947.-Early life:...

for his freedom. Ledbetter had swayed Neff by appealing to his strong religious beliefs. That, in combination with good behavior (including entertaining by playing for the guards and fellow prisoners), was Ledbetter's ticket out of prison. It was quite a testament to his persuasive powers, as Neff had run for governor on a pledge not to issue pardons (pardon by the governor was at that time the only recourse for prisoners, since in most Southern prisons there was no provision for parole

Parole

Parole may have different meanings depending on the field and judiciary system. All of the meanings originated from the French parole . Following its use in late-resurrected Anglo-French chivalric practice, the term became associated with the release of prisoners based on prisoners giving their...

). According to Charles K. Wolfe and Kip Lornell's book, The Life and Legend of Leadbelly (1999), Neff had regularly brought guests to the prison on Sunday picnics to hear Ledbetter perform.

In 1930, Ledbetter was back in prison, after a summary trial, this time in Louisiana

Louisiana

Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...

, for attempted homicide — he had knifed a white man in a fight. It was there, three years later (1933), that he was "discovered" by folklorists John Lomax

John Lomax

John Avery Lomax was an American teacher, a pioneering musicologist and folklorist who did much for the preservation of American folk songs...

and his then 18-year-old son Alan Lomax

Alan Lomax

Alan Lomax was an American folklorist and ethnomusicologist. He was one of the great field collectors of folk music of the 20th century, recording thousands of songs in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain.In his later career, Lomax advanced his theories of...

during a visit to the Angola Prison Farm

Louisiana State Penitentiary

The Louisiana State Penitentiary is a prison farm in Louisiana operated by the Louisiana Department of Public Safety & Corrections. It is the largest maximum security prison in the United States with 5,000 offenders and 1,800 staff...

. Deeply impressed by his vibrant tenor voice and huge repertoire, they recorded him on portable aluminum disc recording equipment for the Library of Congress

Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...

. They returned to record with new and better equipment in July of the following year (1934), all in all recording hundreds of his songs. On August 1, Lead Belly was released (again having served almost all of his minimum sentence), this time after the Lomaxes had taken a petition to Louisiana Governor Oscar K. Allen

Oscar K. Allen

Oscar Kelly Allen, Sr. , also known as O. K. Allen, was the 42nd Governor of Louisiana from 1932 to 1936. He was a key lieutenant in the political machine of Huey Pierce Long, Jr., that dominated the state during the first half of the 1930s...

at Ledbetter's urgent request. The petition was on the other side of a recording of his signature song, "Goodnight Irene". A prison official later wrote to John Lomax denying that Ledbetter's singing had anything to do with his release from Angola, and state prison records confirm that he was eligible for early release due to good behavior. For a time, however, both Ledbetter and the Lomaxes believed that the record they had taken to the governor had hastened his release from Angola.

Among those who befriended Ledbetter while he was at Angola was the industrialist and inventor William Edenborn

William Edenborn

William Edenborn was a businessman, inventor and philanthropist, born in Altena in the Westphalia region of the Ruhr River Valley of the former Prussia, since Germany...

of Winn Parish

Winn Parish, Louisiana

Winn Parish is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. Its seat is Winnfield. In 2000, its population was 16,894.The parish has a total area of , of which, of it is land and of it is water....

, who became a regular prison visitor.

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

once remarked, on his XM radio show, that Ledbetter was "one of the few ex-cons who recorded a popular children’s album".

Moniker

There are several somewhat conflicting stories about how Ledbetter acquired his famous nickname, though the consensus is that it was probably while in prison. Some say his fellow inmates dubbed him "Lead Belly" as a play on his last name and reference to his physical toughness; others say he earned the name after being shot in the stomach with shotgun

Shotgun

A shotgun is a firearm that is usually designed to be fired from the shoulder, which uses the energy of a fixed shell to fire a number of small spherical pellets called shot, or a solid projectile called a slug...

buckshot. Another theory has it that the name refers to his ability to drink moonshine

Moonshine

Moonshine is an illegally produced distilled beverage...

, home-made liquor which Southern farmers, black and white, used to make to supplement their incomes. Blues singer Big Bill Broonzy

Big Bill Broonzy

Big Bill Broonzy was a prolific American blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. His career began in the 1920s when he played country blues to mostly black audiences. Through the ‘30s and ‘40s he successfully navigated a transition in style to a more urban blues sound popular with white audiences...

thought it came from a supposed tendency to lay about as if "with a stomach weighted down by lead" in the shade when the chain gang was supposed to be working. (This seems unlikely, unless it was ironic, given his well-known capacity for hard work.) It is likely that it is simply a corruption of his surname pronounced with a southern accent. Whatever its origin, he adopted the nickname as a pseudonym while performing, and it stuck. Regarding his toughness, it is also recounted that during his second prison term, another inmate stabbed him in the neck (leaving him with a fearsome scar that he subsequently covered with a bandana), and he took the knife away and in turn almost killed his attacker with it.

Life after prison

By the time Lead Belly was released from prison, the United States was deep in the Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

and jobs were very scarce. In September 1934, in need of regular work in order to avoid having his release canceled, Lead Belly met with John A. Lomax and asked him to take him on as a driver. For three months he assisted the 67-year-old John Lomax in his folk song collecting in the South. (Alan Lomax was ill and did not accompany them on this trip.)

In December, Lead Belly participated in a "smoker" (group sing) at an MLA

Modern Language Association

The Modern Language Association of America is the principal professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature...

meeting in Bryn Mawr College

Bryn Mawr College

Bryn Mawr College is a women's liberal arts college located in Bryn Mawr, a community in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, ten miles west of Philadelphia. The name "Bryn Mawr" means "big hill" in Welsh....

in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

, where John A. Lomax had a prior lecturing 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

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, where John Lomax was scheduled to meet with his publisher, Macmillan

Macmillan Publishers (United States)

Macmillan Publishers USA, also known as Macmillan Publishing, is a privately held American publishing company owned by the Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. It has offices in 41 countries worldwide and operates in more than 30 others....

, about a new collection of folk songs. The newspapers were eager to write about the "singing convict" and Time

Time (magazine)

Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

magazine made one of its first filmed March of Time newsreels about him. Lead Belly attained fame (though not fortune).

The following week, he began recording with ARC

American Record Corporation

ARC, the American Record Company, also referred to as American Record Corporation, or as ARC Records, was a United States based record company...

, the race records division of Columbia Records

Columbia Records

Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...

, but these recordings achieved little commercial success. Part of the reason for the poor sales may have been because ARC insisted on releasing only his blues

Blues

songs rather than the folk songs for which he would later become better known. In any case, Lead Belly continued to struggle financially. Like many performers, what income he made during his lifetime would come from touring, not from record sales.

In February 1935, he married his girlfriend, Martha Promise, who came north from Louisiana to join him.

The month of February was spent recording his and other African-American repertoire and interviews about his life with Alan Lomax for their forthcoming book, Negro Folk Songs as Sung by Lead Belly (1936). Concert appearances were slow to materialize, however, and in March 1935, Lead Belly accompanied John A. Lomax on a two-week lecture tour of colleges and universities in the Northeast, culminating at Harvard

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

. These lectures had been scheduled before John Lomax had teamed up with Lead Belly.

At the end of the month, John Lomax decided he could no longer work with Lead Belly and gave him and Martha money to go back to Louisiana by bus. He gave Martha the money that Lead Belly had earned from three months of performing, but in installments, on the pretext that Lead Belly would drink it all if given a lump sum. From Louisiana, Lead Belly then successfully sued Lomax for the full amount and for release from his management contract with Lomax. The quarrel was very bitter and there were hard feelings on both sides. Curiously, however, in the midst of the legal wrangling Lead Belly wrote to John A. Lomax proposing that they team up together once again. It was not to be, however. The book about Lead Belly that the Lomaxes published in the fall of the following year, meanwhile, was a commercial failure.

In January 1936, Lead Belly returned to New York on his own without John Lomax for an attempted comeback. He performed twice a day at Harlem's Apollo Theater

Apollo Theater

The Apollo Theater in New York City is one of the most famous, and older, music halls in the United States, and the most famous club associated almost exclusively with Black performers...

during the Easter season in a live dramatic recreation of the Time Life newsreel (itself a recreation) about his prison encounter with John A. Lomax, in which he had worn stripes, even though by this time he was no longer associated with Lomax.

Life

Life (magazine)

Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....

magazine ran a three-page article titled, "Lead Belly - Bad Nigger Makes Good Minstrel", in the April 19, 1937 issue. 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 picture of Martha Promise (identified in the article as his manager); photos showing 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 of his petitions to the governors, who were so moved that they pardoned him. The article's text ends with "he... may well be on the brink of a new and prosperous period".

Lead Belly failed to stir the enthusiasm of Harlem

Harlem

Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...

audiences. Instead, he attained success playing at concerts and benefits for an audience of leftist folk music aficionados. He developed his own style of singing and explaining his repertoire in the context of Southern black culture, taking the hint from his previous participation in John A. 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). He was written up as a heroic figure by the black novelist, Richard Wright

Richard Wright (author)

Richard Nathaniel Wright was an African-American author of sometimes controversial novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction. Much of his literature concerns racial themes, especially those involving the plight of African-Americans during the late 19th to mid 20th centuries...

, then a member of the Communist Party

Communist party

A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...

, in the columns of the Daily Worker
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, some attempts were made to make it appear that the paper reflected a...

, of which Wright was the Harlem editor. The two men became personal friends, though Lead Belly himself was apolitical

Apolitical

The state or quality of being apolitical can be the apathy and/or the antipathy towards all political affiliations. Being apolitical can also refer to situations in which people take an unbiased position in regard to political matters.-References:...

— if anything, a supporter of Wendell Willkie

Wendell Willkie

Wendell Lewis Willkie was a corporate lawyer in the United States and a dark horse who became the Republican Party nominee for the president in 1940. A member of the liberal wing of the GOP, he crusaded against those domestic policies of the New Deal that he thought were inefficient and...

, the centrist Republican candidate, for whom he wrote a campaign song.

In 1939, Lead Belly was back in jail for assault

Assault

In law, assault is a crime causing a victim to fear violence. The term is often confused with battery, which involves physical contact. The specific meaning of assault varies between countries, but can refer to an act that causes another to apprehend immediate and personal violence, or in the more...

, after stabbing a man in a fight in Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

. 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 his release (in 1940-41), Lead Belly appeared as a regular on Alan Lomax and Nicholas Ray

Nicholas Ray

Nicholas Ray was an American film director best known for the movie Rebel Without a Cause....

's groundbreaking CBS

CBS

CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

radio show, Back Where I Come From, broadcast nationwide. He also appeared in night clubs with Josh White

Josh White

Joshua Daniel White , better known as Josh White, 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....

, becoming a fixture in New York City's surging folk music scene and befriending the likes of Sonny Terry

Sonny Terry

Saunders Terrell, better known as Sonny Terry was a blind American Piedmont blues musician. He was widely known for his energetic blues harmonica style, which frequently included vocal whoops and hollers, and imitations of trains and fox hunts.-Career:Terry was born in Greensboro, Georgia...

, Brownie McGhee

Brownie McGhee

Walter Brown McGhee was a Piedmont blues singer and guitarist, best known for his collaborations with the harmonica player Sonny Terry.-Life and career:...

, Woody Guthrie

Woody Guthrie

Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his...

, and a young Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger

Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...

, all fellow performers on Back Where I Come From. During the first half of the decade he recorded for RCA

RCA

RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...

, the Library of Congress

Library of Congress

, and for Moe Asch (future founder of Folkways Records

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:...

), and in 1944 headed to California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, where he recorded strong sessions for Capitol Records

Capitol Records

Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...

. Lead Belly was the first American country blues musician to see success in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

.

In 1949 Lead Belly had a regular radio broadcast on station WNYC in New York on Sunday nights on Henrietta Yurchenko's show. Later in the year he began his first Europe

Europe

an tour with a trip to France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, but fell ill before its completion, and was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis , also referred to as Lou Gehrig's disease, is a form of motor neuron disease caused by the degeneration of upper and lower neurons, located in the ventral horn of the spinal cord and the cortical neurons that provide their efferent input...

, or Lou Gehrig

Lou Gehrig

Henry Louis "Lou" Gehrig , nicknamed "The Iron Horse" for his durability, was an American Major League Baseball first baseman. He played his entire 17-year baseball career for the New York Yankees . Gehrig set several major league records. He holds the record for most career grand slams...

's disease. His final concert was at the University of Texas in a tribute to his former mentor, John A. Lomax, who had died the previous year. Martha also performed at that concert, singing spirituals with her husband.

Lead Belly died later that year in New York City, and was buried in the Shiloh Baptist Church cemetery in Mooringsport, 8 miles (12.9 km) west of Blanchard

Blanchard, Louisiana

Blanchard is a town in Caddo Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 2,050 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Shreveport–Bossier City Metropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography:Blanchard is located at ....

, in Caddo Parish. He is honored with a life-size statue across from the Caddo Parish Courthouse in Shreveport.

Technique

Lead Belly styled himself "King of the 12-string guitar", and despite his use of other instruments like 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, slotted tuners, ladder bracing, and a trapeze-style tailpiece to resist bridge lifting.

Lead Belly played with finger picks much of the time, using a thumb pick to provide a walking bass line and occasionally to strum. This technique, combined with low tunings and heavy strings, gives many of his recordings a piano-like sound. Lead Belly's tuning is debated, but appears to be a downtuned variant of standard tuning; more than likely he tuned his guitar strings relative to one another, so that the actual notes shifted as the strings wore. Lead Belly's playing style was popularized by Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger

, 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 where Lead Belly accompanied himself, he would make an unusual type of grunt between his verses, best described as "Haah!" Many of his songs, such as, "Looky Looky Yonder", "Take this Hammer

Take This Hammer

"Take This Hammer" is a prison work song. It was collected by John and Alan Lomax. The song "Nine Pound Hammer" has a few phrases in common with this song, and the same Roud number. "Swannanoa Tunnel" is similar, and this group of songs are referred to as 'hammer songs' or 'roll songs'...

", "Linin' Track" and "Julie Ann Johnson" feature this unusual vocalization. Lead Belly explained that, "Every time the men say 'haah', the hammer falls. The hammer rings, and we swing, and we sing", an apparent reference to prisoners' work songs. The "haah" sound can be heard in the work chants sung by Southern railroad section workers, "gandy dancers", where it was used to coordinate the crews as they laid and maintained the tracks before modern machinery was available. (See the Wikipedia article Gandy dancer

Gandy dancer

Gandy dancer is a slang term used for early railroad workers who laid and maintained railroad tracks in the years before the work was done by machines....

s for examples of the chants.)

Legacy

Lead Belly has been covered by Delaney Davidson, Tom Russell

Tom Russell

Thomas George "Tom" Russell is an American singer-songwriter. Although most strongly identified with the Texas Country music tradition, his music also incorporates elements of folk, Tex-Mex, and the cowboy music of the American West. Many of his songs have been recorded by other artists, including...

, Lonnie Donegan

Lonnie Donegan

Anthony James "Lonnie" Donegan MBE was a skiffle musician, with more than 20 UK Top 30 hits to his name. He is known as the "King of Skiffle" and is often cited as a large influence on the generation of British musicians who became famous in the 1960s...

, The Beach Boys

The Beach Boys

The Beach Boys are an American rock band, formed in 1961 in Hawthorne, California. The group was initially composed of brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. Managed by the Wilsons' father Murry, The Beach Boys signed to Capitol Records in 1962...

, Creedence Clearwater Revival

Creedence Clearwater Revival

Creedence Clearwater Revival was an American rock band that gained popularity in the late 1960s and early 1970s with a number of successful singles drawn from various albums....

, Abba

Abba

ABBA is the name of a former Swedish pop music group.Abba may also refer to:* ABBA , a self-titled album by the Swedish pop music group ABBA* "Abba ", a song by Christian pop and rock artist, Rebecca St...

, Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger

, Harry Belafonte

Harry Belafonte

Harold George "Harry" Belafonte, Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, actor and social activist. He was dubbed the "King of Calypso" for popularizing the Caribbean musical style with an international audience in the 1950s...

, Ram Jam

Ram Jam

Ram Jam was an American 1970s rock band, best known for their 1977 hit single, "Black Betty".The band members were Bill Bartlett , Pete Charles , Myke Scavone , and Howie Arthur Blauvelt . Also, Jimmy Santoro, who toured with the band in support of their debut album, joined on guitar for the...

, Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash

John R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...

, Tom Petty

Tom Petty

Thomas Earl "Tom" Petty is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He is the frontman of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and was a founding member of the late 1980s supergroup Traveling Wilburys and Mudcrutch. He has also performed under the pseudonyms of Charlie T...

, Dr John, Ry Cooder

Ry Cooder

Ryland Peter "Ry" Cooder is an American guitarist, singer and composer. He is known for his slide guitar work, his interest in roots music from the United States, and, more recently, his collaborations with traditional musicians from many countries.His solo work has been eclectic, encompassing...

, Grateful Dead

Grateful Dead

The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...

, Gene Autry

Gene Autry

Orvon Grover Autry , better known as Gene Autry, was an American performer who gained fame as The Singing Cowboy on the radio, in movies and on television for more than three decades beginning in the 1930s...

, Odetta

Odetta

Odetta Holmes, known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, songwriter, and a human rights activist, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement". Her musical repertoire consisted largely of American folk music, blues, jazz, and spirituals...

, Billy Childish

Billy Childish

Billy Childish is an English artist, painter, author, poet, photographer, film maker, singer and guitarist...

(who named his son Huddie), Mungo Jerry

Mungo Jerry

Mungo Jerry is an English rock group whose greatest success was in the early 1970s, though they have continued throughout the years with an ever-changing line-up, always fronted by Ray Dorset. They are remembered above all for their hit "In the Summertime". It remains their most successful and most...

, Paul King

Paul King (musician)

Paul Malcolm King , was a member of Mungo Jerry between 1970 and 1972. He contributed occasional lead vocals, and played acoustic guitar , banjo, harmonica, kazoo and jug...

, Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...

, Van Morrison

Van Morrison

Van Morrison, OBE is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician. His live performances at their best are regarded as transcendental and inspired; while some of his recordings, such as the studio albums Astral Weeks and Moondance, and the live album It's Too Late to Stop Now, are widely...

, Michelle Shocked

Michelle Shocked

Michelle Shocked is the stage name of Michelle Karen Johnston, an American singer-songwriter.-History:Shocked received her first international exposure in Europe, particularly Britain, with her debut album The Texas Campfire Tapes .Her first U.S...

, Tom Waits

Tom Waits

Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...

, Scott H. Biram

Scott H. Biram

Scott H. Biram, aka Scott Biram, SHB, Hiram Biram, or The Dirty Old One Man Band is an American blues, punk and country music musician, based in Austin, Texas.-Biography:...

, Ron Sexsmith

Ron Sexsmith

Ronald Eldon "Ron" Sexsmith is a Canadian singer-songwriter from St. Catharines, Ontario, currently based in Toronto. He started his own band when he was fourteen years old, and released the first recordings of his own material seven years later, in 1985...

, British Sea Power

British Sea Power

British Sea Power are an indie rock band based in Brighton, England, although three of the band members originally come from Kendal in Cumbria. Critics have likened their sound to a variety of groups, from The Cure and Joy Division to the Pixies and Arcade Fire. The band are famed for their live...

, Rod Stewart

Rod Stewart

Roderick David "Rod" Stewart, CBE is a British singer-songwriter and musician, born and raised in North London, England and currently residing in Epping. He is of Scottish and English ancestry....

, Ernest Tubb

Ernest Tubb

Ernest Dale Tubb , nicknamed the Texas Troubadour, was an American singer and songwriter and one of the pioneers of country music. His biggest career hit song, "Walking the Floor Over You" , marked the rise of the honky tonk style of music...

, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are an Australian alternative rock band, formed in Melbourne in 1983. The band is fronted by Nick Cave and has featured international personnel throughout their career.-Formation and early releases :...

, The White Stripes

The White Stripes

The White Stripes was an American rock band, formed in 1997 in Detroit, Michigan. The group consisted of the songwriter Jack White and drummer Meg White . Jack and Meg White were previously married to each other, but are now divorced...

, The Fall, The Doors

The Doors

The Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, California, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger...

, Smog

Smog (band)

Bill Callahan , is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist, who has also recorded and performed under the band name Smog. Callahan began working in the lo-fi genre of underground rock, with home-made tape-albums recorded on four track tape recorders...

, Old Crow Medicine Show

Old Crow Medicine Show

Old Crow Medicine Show is an old-time string band based in Nashville, Tennessee. Their music has been called bluegrass, Americana, and alt-country, in addition to old-time. Along with original songs, the band performs many pre-World War II blues and folk songs...

, Spiderbait

Spiderbait

Spiderbait are an Australian alternative rock band formed in Finley in 1989 by bass guitarist Janet English, singer-drummer Mark Maher , and guitarist Damian Whitty. In 2004 the group's cover version of the 1930s Lead Belly song "Black Betty" reached number one on the ARIA Singles Chart...

, Meat Loaf

Meat Loaf

Michael Lee Aday , better known by his stage name, Meat Loaf, is an American hard rock musician and actor...

, Ministry

Ministry (band)

Ministry is an American industrial metal band founded by lead singer Al Jourgensen in 1981. Originally a synthpop outfit, Ministry changed its style to industrial metal in the late 1980s. Ministry found mainstream success in the early 1990s with its most successful album Psalm 69: The Way to...

, Raffi

Raffi (musician)

Raffi Cavoukian, CM, OBC , better known by his stage name Raffi, is a Canadian-Armenian singer-songwriter, author, essayist and lecturer...

, Rasputina

Rasputina

Rasputina is a cello-driven band based in New York that is renowned for their unconventional and quirky music style as well as their fascination with historical allegories and fashion, especially those pertaining to the Victorian era....

, Rory Gallagher

Rory Gallagher

William Rory Gallagher, ; 2 March 1948 – 14 June 1995, was an Irish blues-rock multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and bandleader. Born in Ballyshannon, County Donegal, Ireland, and raised in Cork, Gallagher recorded solo albums throughout the 1970s and 1980s, after forming the band Taste...

, the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Deer Tick, Hugh Laurie

Hugh Laurie

James Hugh Calum Laurie, OBE , better known as Hugh Laurie , is an English actor, voice artist, comedian, writer, musician, recording artist, and director...

, X, jazz guitarist Bill Frisell

Bill Frisell

William Richard "Bill" Frisell is an American guitarist and composer.One of the leading guitarists in jazz since the late 1980s, Frisell's eclectic music touches on progressive folk, classical music, country music, noise and more...

, Koerner, Ray & Glover

Koerner, Ray & Glover

Koerner, Ray & Glover is the name of a blues band from Minneapolis, Minnesota. The band featured Tony "Little Sun" Glover on harmonica, "Spider" John Koerner on guitar and vocals, and Dave "Snaker" Ray on guitar and vocals. Koerner, Ray & Glover were part of the early folk/blues explosion in the...

, Nirvana

Nirvana (band)

Nirvana was an American rock band that was formed by singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987...

, and Mark Lanegan

Mark Lanegan

Mark Lanegan is an American rock musician and songwriter. Lanegan began his music career in the 1980s, forming the grunge group Screaming Trees with Gary Lee Conner, Van Conner and Mark Pickerel. During his time in the band Lanegan would start a low-key solo career...

, among many others.

The Library of Congress recordings

The Library of Congress

Library of Congress

recordings, done by John

John Lomax

John Avery Lomax was an American teacher, a pioneering musicologist and folklorist who did much for the preservation of American folk songs...

and Alan Lomax

Alan Lomax

from 1934 to 1943, were released in a six volume series by Rounder Records

Rounder Records

Rounder Records, originally of Cambridge, Massachusetts, but now based in Burlington, Massachusetts, is a record label founded in 1970 by Ken Irwin, Bill Nowlin and Marian Leighton-Levy, while all three were still university students...

in the early-to-mid-1990s:

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)

Folkways recordings

The Folkways

Folkways

Folkways can refer to:*Folkways —theory by the sociologist William Graham Sumner.*Folkways Records—a record label founded by Moe Asch....

recordings, done for Moses Asch

Moses Asch

Moses Asch was the founder of Folkways Records. Asch ran the label from 1948 until his death...

from 1941 to 1947, were released in a three volume series by Smithsonian Folkways

Smithsonian Folkways

Smithsonian Folkways is the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution. It is a part of the Smithsonian's Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, located at Capital Gallery in downtown Washington, D.C. The label was founded in 1987 after the family of Moses Asch, founder of Folkways...

in the late 1990s:

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)

Smithsonian Folkways

have also released a number of other collections of his recordings for the label:

Lead Belly Sings Folk Songs (1989)
Lead Belly's Last Sessions (4 CD box set) (1994) Recorded late 1948 in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. These were his only commercial recordings on magnetic tape
Magnetic tape
Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic recording, made of a thin magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic. It was developed in Germany, based on magnetic wire recording. Devices that record and play back audio and video using magnetic tape are tape recorders and video tape recorders...

.
Lead Belly Sings For Children (1999) Includes the 1960 Folkways album Negro Folk Songs for Young People in its entirety, and five of the six tracks from the 1941 album Play Parties in Song and Dance as Sung by Lead Belly, recorded for Moses Asch
Moses Asch
Moses Asch was the founder of Folkways Records. Asch ran the label from 1948 until his death...

, as well as other songs recorded for Asch from 1941 to 1948, and one previously unreleased track, a radio broadcast of "Take this Hammer".
Folkways: The Original Vision (Woody Guthrie and Lead Belly) (2004) Expanded version of the original 1989 compilation.

Live Recordings

Leadbelly Recorded In Concert, University of Texas, Austin, June 15, 1949 (1973, Playboy Records PB 119).

Other compilations

Huddie Ledbetter's Best (1989, BGO Records
BGO
BGO can refer to:* A bismuth germanate detector, a type of scintillator* BGO, the IATA code for Bergen Flesland Airport in Bergen, Norway* BGO, the Burke-Gaffney Observatory located at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia Canada...

) - contains Lead Belly's recordings made for Capitol Records
Capitol Records
Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...

in 1944 in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

.
King of the 12-String Guitar (1991, Sony/Legacy Records) - a collection of blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

songs and prison ballads recorded in 1935 in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

for the American Record Company
American Record Company
The American Record Company was a United States record label, in business from about 1904 to 1908. Then re-activated in 1979.The American Record Company was founded by Ellsworth A. Hawthorne and Horace Sheble and Frederick M. Prescott. It was based in Springfield, Massachusetts...

, including previously unreleased alternate takes.
Private Party November 21, 1948 (2000, Document Records) - contains Lead Belly's intimate performance at a private party in late 1948 in Minneapolis.
Take This Hammer (2003, RCA Victor) - collects all 26 songs Lead Belly recorded for RCA
RCA
RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...

in 1940, half of which feature the Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet
A Leadbelly Memorial, Vol II (1963 Stinson Records, SLP 19) - red vinyl pressing

Sources

White, Gary; Stuart, David; Aviva, Elyn. "Music in Our World". 2001. ISBN 0-07-027212-3. (p. 196)
Lornell, Kip and Wolfe, Charles. The Life and Legend of Leadbelly (Da Capo Press, 1999)

External links

The Lead Belly Foundation
"Where Did You Sleep Last Night" MP3 file on The Internet Archive
"Ledbetter, Huddie (Leadbelly)" in the Handbook of Texas Online
[ Allmusic]
Discography for Lead Belly on Folkways
Recording of Lead Belly and Woody Guthrie live on WNYC Radio, Dec. 1940, with commentary by WNYC radio producer Henrietta Yurchenco
Leadbelly and Lomax Together at the American Music Festival on WNYC
Lead Belly And The Lomaxes: Myths and Realities A FAQ and Timeline Lead Belly's relationship with John and Alan Lomax
Louisiana Music Hall of Fame Induction Page

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